Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Mining (Italian Workers)

Mr. Gerald Williams: asked the Minister of Labour how many Italians are now working in British coalmines.

The Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton): About 1,220.

Mr. Williams: Can the Minister say out of this number how many have not got jobs and how many of those it will be possible to switch over to agriculture?

Sir W. Monckton: The 1,220 to whom I have referred in my answer are those who are working in the mines already.

Brixton

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: asked the Minister of Labour how many persons are registered as unemployed at the Brixton employment exchange; and what the figure was on the corresponding date in 1951.

Sir W. Monckton: One thousand seven hundred and seven-three at 17th March. 1952, and 1,265 at 12th March, 1951.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that these figures show a disturbing trend which is manifesting itself all over the country? Is he also aware that, while people are prepared to make sacrifices for economic survival, growing unemployment is not a sacrifice which people generally will accept passively?

Sir W. Monckton: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will see from the figures which I have given the extent of the increase, and he will also no doubt have seen from the Press that, apart from the special and difficult case of the textile

industry, there has not since February been any marked increase in unemployment.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is this not a 50 per cent. increase over last year at this one exchange?

Sir W. Monckton: I ought to make it plain that one ought not to draw too many deductions either way from the figures of the Brixton employment exchange. If I may so put it, it is rather a dormitory area and one cannot get much of a picture from the figures of that exchange alone. That is why I referred to the national figures as well.

Factory, Failsworth (Waiting Time)

Mr. Leslie Hale: asked the Minister of Labour how many hours of waiting time have been paid for in Messrs. A. V. Roe's Empire Works, Failsworth, in the period of 28 days since the date of his last inquiry in February; and how many skilled workers have now left this factory to go into other industries.

Sir W. Monckton: I regret the information is not available.

Mr. Hale: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman keep a constant eye on this matter and draw a few economic lessons from the information which I have given him?

Sir W. Monckton: I will, Sir.

Air Commodore A. V. Harvey: If there is waiting time at Avro's factory, is it not because orders were not placed in sufficient time, probably 12 months ago, to keep it sufficiently employed?

Temporary Unemployment

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in the count of the number of persons partially unemployed taken by his Department, the count includes only those persons who are temporarily stopped on the day of the count or whether it includes all persons temporarily stopped at any time during the week preceding.

Sir W. Monckton: The count includes only those persons who are temporarily stopped on the day of the count, that is, on the Monday.

Mr. Hale: I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whose


attention has been called to this matter before, will now realise that this gives a wholly misleading impression. Clearly, as most firms work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we have not got the figures of the partial unemployment at all?

Sir W. Monckton: The difficulty is that, from a survey of the country as a whole, I find that Monday has an effect in one place which it does not have in another, and if I took Friday or some other day I should find exactly the same problem in getting a complete return. What happens is that once a quarter I get a complete week's return on another basis which enables one to check the position to some extent.

Mr. Hale: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman arrange to have a week's return as the normal standard for the published figures upon which all the information is based? We do not know what private information he has, but we know that the figures which he publishes are wrong.

Sir W. Monckton: The results of the week's complete return which I get each quarter are made public. However, I will look at the whole matter and see if more can be done.

Mr. S. S. Awbery: Might it not improve the position if the right hon. and learned Gentleman took the figures for a week and also took the highest number and the lowest number on a certain day during that week?

Sir W. Monckton: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that to get the average for the week I should have to take every day. We take one day, and there is no reason to think that any other day would give a fairer return. We attempt to check the figure with a complete week, which we cannot do all the time but do from time to time.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that when Miss Margaret Bondfield became Minister of Labour, the system was a weekly count, and that it was a Socialist Government which changed it to a monthly count?

Sir W. Monckton: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that information.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE

Conscientious Objectors (Tribunals)

Mr. Victor Yates: asked the Minister of Labour how many applications from conscientious objectors were considered by the Midlands Tribunal from 20th December to 12th March inclusive; how many were accepted; how many were declined; and of the number declined how many applicants based their objection upon grounds other than religious.

Sir W. Monckton: Seventy-one applications were considered, of which 38 were accepted and 33 rejected. I am not in a position to classify cases according to whether the objection was based on religious grounds or not.

Mr. Yates: Has the Minister's attention been drawn to a letter, which has received great prominence, which appeared in the Birmingham Press from the Warwickshire Society of Friends, in which it was stated that if it were known how unfairly the conscientious objection clause was being interpreted, there would be a great number of protests in view of the large number of applications which have been declined; and will he look into that matter?

Sir W. Monckton: If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to let me see the document to which he referred, I will look into it.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: While recognising the very great difficulty of tribunal members in judging conscience, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look at the proceedings of this Midland Tribunal and review the question of whether the present personnel is appropriate for the purpose?

Sir W. Monckton: I have no reason to suppose that there is any difficulty about the tribunal there. I have investigated the results and I find that they are about the same as in other districts; but if there is some specific point, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put it down on the Order Paper.

Mr. T. Driberg: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that he cannot answer the last part of the Question on the Order Paper, ought he not to look into the discrepancies between


the practices of the various tribunals, some of which do recognise objections on other than religious grounds, for instance, political grounds in the broadest sense of that word?

Sir W. Monckton: The matter depends on the word "conscience" in the Act, and I have no power to determine whether that should be based on religious, political or moral grounds. It is a duty given to the tribunal by the Act, and I do not think that it would be wise for me to try to interfere.

Mr. Yates: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the increasing number of cases when local tribunals for conscientious objectors have declined applications for registration upon moral, humanitarian or political grounds; and if he will take powers to issue regulations governing the course to be adopted in both local and appellate tribunals when considering such cases.

Sir W. Monckton: No, Sir. The National Service Acts deliberately placed on the independent tribunals the sole responsibility for deciding these cases. In my view it would be a retrograde step to ask Parliament to empower me to fetter their judgment by regulations.

Mr. Yates: Is the Minister aware that I attended this tribunal on 12th March and I heard statements made very clearly—at least four statements—that the only conscientious objections that Parliament recognises are those based on religious grounds; and three other separate statements clearly showing that neither on moral, humanitarian nor political grounds does Parliament recognise conscientious objections. That statement was made by the chairman of the tribunal in my presence, and I ask the Minister seriously to consider this matter?

Sir W. Monckton: That is a different matter, of which I have no knowledge. If the hon. Gentleman will bring it to my notice, I will take it into account with the other matter which he asked me to look into.

Mr. Charles Doughty: In view of the duties properly carried out by the vast majority of the young people of this country, will my right hon. and learned Friend not encourage in any way those people who try to "dodge the column"?

Mr. George Thomas: While we appreciate the arduous task of those on these tribunals who have to judge, and that many grievous injustices made will take place where earnest people do not base their objections on religion at all, may I ask the Minister if he will give the utmost sympathy to the requests that have come from this side of the House?

Sir W. Monckton: I would venture to point out that Parliament appreciated the difficulties of these tribunals to the extent of making an appellate tribunal available, and did not make the Minister an appellate tribunal from that tribunal.

Mr. E. Shinwell: In view of the question put by the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty), would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the law does contain the conscience provision depending of course, upon the interpretation placed upon the law by the tribunals concerned; but that it is not an offence for a person who has conscientious scruples to appear before a tribunal? Will he make that quite clear to his hon. Friend?

Sir W. Monckton: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. The law says that where a conscientious objection is upheld in the view of the tribunal which the law has laid down, that is a valid answer. I am only trying to point out to hon. Members how difficult is the task of tribunals in deciding what is a conscientious objection, and how reluctant I am to interfere when I have not been told by Parliament so to do.

Aircraft Industry (Ex-Apprentices' Deferment)

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has now completed his examination of the possibility of allowing some measure of deferment for ex-apprentices in the aircraft industry.

Sir W. Monckton: Yes, Sir. Arrangements are being made to allow deferment of call-up for a limited number of men in highly skilled occupations for not more than two years after completion of apprenticeship where full use is being made of their skill on certain specified rearmament projects of the highest priority, including the latest types of military aircraft. This is subject to the men concerned not being required for service in a


Service trade making full use of their skill. Information as to the procedure to be followed is being given by the Admiralty and the Ministry of Supply to the contractors and main sub-contractors whose work comes within the scope of these arrangements.

Air Commodore Harvey: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the statement which he has just made will give great satisfaction to those concerned in this great industry? Will he be a little more explicit about sub-contractors, because in this industry sub-contractors are carrying out a great percentage of the work involved?

Sir W. Monckton: Yes, Sir. This is a very limited exception from the general rule, and it is only in the case of the contractors and the main sub-contractors that it will apply.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the exception is applicable to the electronics industry?

Sir W. Monckton: Yes, Sir.

Mr. H. Hynd: As this is the second case recently in which, as a result of special pleading, certain sections have been exempt from call-up for National Service, the other case being that of agricultural workers, does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that a general review should take place so that the matter should not be dealt with piecemeal like this? Can he harmonise these special exceptions with his refusal to release miners from the Forces?

Sir W. Monckton: The difficulty about these exceptions is that in such a case as that to which the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) referred a moment ago, very exceptional considerations apply. I am most anxious not to see the numbers available for the Forces reduced below what they need, and it is with great reluctance that I have gone as far as I have done.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Philosophical Society of England

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Education what grants are made by her Department to the Philosophical Society of England.

The Minister of Education (Miss Florence Horsbrugh): None, Sir.

Mr. Driberg: May I ask the right hon. Lady whether she saw Professor Ryle's exposure in a recent issue of the "Spectator" of this completely bogus organisation, and are there any steps which she can take to protect the public from confusion which may be caused by the activities of these degree-hawking impostors?

Miss Horsbugh: Unless this society applies to me for a grant, I am afraid that I have no business to inquire into it, but I have been interested to read some of the statements which I have found in various papers.

Building Programme, Slough

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Minister of Education why three new schools which had been included in the Slough building programme are to be cut out by order of her Department; and whether she will reconsider this decision.

Miss Horsbrugh: There has been delay in the development of the new housing estates which will be served by these schools. According to my information the two new schools included in the current school building programme will suffice for the time being.

Mr. Brockway: Is the right hon. Lady aware that housing has been held up in Slough because of the absence of drainage; that, when that drainage scheme is completed, there will be not only a big scheme for Slough itself but also two large L.C.C. estates; that the schools are already crowded; and that unless these buildings are put up there will not be places for at least 2,000 children?

Miss Horsbrugh: I am informed that two years ago it was estimated that 2,000 houses would be completed at Langley and Farnham Royal by the end of 1953, but now the London County Council do not expect to have completed more than 900 by the end of 1953. We are keeping in close touch and trying to see that the provision of schools synchronises with the completion of houses.

Mr. C. W. Gibson: To some extent the reply given by the right hon. Lady is correct, but are not the difficulties


about the sewers the reason for the delay? Unless some authority is given for an early date to commence the building of these schools, a large number of London children living in the houses which are built will have no school to go to within the next 12 or 18 months. Will the right hon. Lady look into the matter a little more closely and try to synchronise the building of the schools and the houses more closely?

Miss Horsbrugh: That is exactly what I am doing. As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, there has been a delay in housing. The fact that the delay has occurred has nothing to do with me. We are trying to synchronise the building. I shall certainly consider including the further projects for the area in the school building programme for 1953–54.

Equipment, Slough

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Minister of Education whether she is aware that, to meet the cuts in education equipment in Slough, the parents and teachers of two schools are organising jumble sales to enable the equipment to be maintained; and whether she will instruct the Buckinghamshire County Council to reconsider its allocation for educational equipment.

Miss Horsbrugh: I understand from the authority that there is no reason to suggest that the schools will be prevented from obtaining essential educational equipment.

Mr. Brockway: Might I draw the attention of the Minister to the statements of the headmasters of these schools, who have asked that these jumble sales shall be held because the cut in the programme for this year means that they will be without equipment? While that is admirable action on the part of the headmasters and the parents, is it not a humiliation to our national education scheme that resort is needed to methods of this kind?

Miss Horsbrugh: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware that the authority's estimates for 1952–53 as compared with 1951–52 have been increased, for the provision of books, stationery and materials, from £4,600 to £7,200 in the case of primary schools and from about £4,600 to over £6,000 in the case of secondary schools.

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: Is it not a fact that over the last five or six years, and in some cases for even longer, efforts of this kind have been organised on behalf of a great many schools in the country, very largely by parent-teacher associations and like bodies? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that they have done magnificent work in helping many schools out of great difficulties for a long time?

Miss Horsbrugh: I know that it has been, and is, a common practice to raise by voluntary methods funds for certain things which schools would like to have as extras. However, I assure hon. Gentlemen that there has been this increase in the estimates for books, stationery and materials.

Mr. Brockway: Is the Minister aware that there has been a cut in this year's estimate for this purpose in the Buckinghamshire County Council area, and the facts that she gives about the latest estimate—the original estimate was cut after the receipt of her circular by the county council—are accounted for by the increase in the school population and for the extra prices for equipment in the schools?

Miss Horsbrugh: I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that the reason we are spending more on education than ever before is because there has been this increase in the school population and because costs have gone up.

Residential Special Schools (Maintenance Contributions)

Mr. Peter Remnant: asked the Minister of Education whether she will introduce legislation to enable parents to be required to make some contribution towards maintenance where children are accommodated in residential special schools.

Miss Horsbrugh: I am not yet ready to introduce any legislative proposals, but in preparing them I will consider this suggestion along with any others that may be put to me.

Mr. Remnant: Is my right hon. Friend aware, as I am sure she is, that in nonresidential schools the parents have had to contribute to maintenance as distinct from the education, and it seems unreasonable that because a child is in a residential centre the parents should make


no contribution, as they would have done if the child were at a non-residential school?

Miss Horsbrugh: I am aware of that, and as I have already said, I wish to consider the various suggestions that are put to me before I make any proposals for legislation.

Nursery Schools, Yeovil and Chard

Mr. John Peyton: asked the Minister of Education whether she will refuse to sanction the decision of the Somerset County Council to close nursery schools at Yeovil and Chard.

Miss Horsbrugh: I am considering the local education authority's proposal, of which I have just been informed, to close eight out of the 10 nursery schools which they maintain, including that at Chard and one of the two at Yeovil.

Mr. Peyton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the result of this proposal, if approved, will be very considerable hardship to the children and parents involved, and has she satisfied herself that adequate inquiries were first made by the Somerset County Council?

Miss Horsbrugh: As I have said, I have only just received the proposal. It was sent to me on 4th April, and I shall look into all the details about the proposed closing of these nursery schools.

Mr. G. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that it was her own circular which inspired this authority and other similarly minded authorities to reduce the facilities that are considered essential in the educational world?

Miss Horsbrugh: As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, these schools cannot be closed unless the approval of the Minister is given. As I have said, I am looking into all these cases, but I only received this communication on 4th April.

Schoolchildren's Fares, London

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Education whether she has agreed to the request of the London County Council to continue the payment of fares of children under eight years of age resident more than one-and-half miles from the schools at which they attend.

Miss Horsbrugh: Yes, Sir.

Expenditure

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Minister of Education whether, in view of the growing public feeling against the cuts in the education service, as demonstrated by the results of the county council elections, she will now review her policy of making cuts in these services.

Miss Horsbrugh: No, Sir. I invited local education authorities to co-operate with me in reducing the rate of increase in their expenditure as shown in the forecasts for 1952–53 and concentrating their resources on the essentials of the education service. I can find no grounds for reviewing this policy.

Mr. Fletcher: But is the right hon. Lady not aware that the education cuts were a dominant issue in many of the county council elections, particularly in London, and in view of the overwhelming Labour success throughout the country, is it not the duty of the right hon. Lady to review her whole policy and have regard to the determination of public opinion that the educational services shall be maintained and increased?

Miss Horsbrugh: When the hon. Member speaks of cuts, he realises that a great many people who did not take the trouble to understand my circular thought that there was going to be a decrease in local authority spending on education this year as compared with last year. The people in London were not fully informed that the real situation was that there was an increase of expenditure by the local education authorities this year of £14 million, which is an increase of over 5 per cent., and not a decrease.

Sir Harold Webbe: Is the Minister aware that any effect that these educational proposals may have had on the election in London is due simply to the gross misrepresentation which has been going on for so many years, and which is characteristic of the Socialist Party?

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister aware that the answer that she gave to my previous Question on the subject of school fares shows that there was an attempt on the part of her Department to persuade the London County Council to effect a rather nauseating economy at the expense of children under eight years of age, and either make them walk the


whole distance to school or pay all or part of the fare, and that she has now changed her mind?

Miss Horsbrugh: No. I should like to make it quite clear to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that it is not a case of changing my mind. I asked the local authorities to look into the subject of their transport charges, which my predecessor two years ago said were much too high, and which are higher now. The London County Council have sent me a statement of certain things that they wish to continue to do. I have acknowledged their letter, and I have not directed that there should be changes where they make slight alterations or variations for school children of certain ages.

Mr. Shinwell: Am I to understand from what the right hon. Lady has said, and from the cheers which greeted some of her observations, that the Government are not the least disturbed by the results of the County Council elections?

Miss Horsbrugh: I am not in the least disturbed that some people say there has been a cut in expenditure in education, because I know that that is completely untrue. There has been an increase.

Hop Picking (School Holidays)

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Education what instructions she has issued to education authorities as to the granting of extra holidays to the children of hop-pickers during the hop-picking season.

Miss Horsbrugh: The authorities likely to be concerned were recently reminded that they can help in securing adult labour for hop-picking by allowing local variations in the dates for school holidays and by granting children leave of absence for up to 14 days to accompany their parents on a hop-picking holiday.

Mr. Williams: Is the Minister aware that there have been quite a number of prosecutions? I know the case is a very difficult one, but, if it is not possible to extend the holidays, will she ask the local authorities to treat such cases where children have to go with their parents to the hop-picking fields with very great leniency?

Miss Horsbrugh: My hon. Friend will realise that the enforcement of school attendance is the responsibility of the local education authority, and it would not be proper for me to interfere with their discretion. I shall certainly look into any particular point which my hon. Friend would like to bring to my notice.

General Certificate Examination

Mr. Doughty: asked the Minister of Education whether she has now decided to relax the age limit of 16 years for those pupils who wish to take the general certificate of education.

Miss Horsbrugh: I have nothing at this stage to add to the answer I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Norfolk, Central (Brigadier Medlicott), on 6th March.

Mr. Doughty: In view of the great anxiety felt about this question by parents, will my hon. Friend expedite her decision in this matter as much as possible?

Miss Horsbrugh: I will do my best to decide as quickly as possible as soon as the report from Secondary School Examinations Council comes through.

Mr. Ralph Morley: Is the Minister aware that the recommendation fixing the age for taking the examination at 16 was the unanimous decision of the Secondary Schools Examination Council, and will she pause and reflect and weigh everything carefully before she agrees to the reactionary proposal to reduce the age limit?

Miss Horsbrugh: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware that, soon after I took office as Minister of Education, I was informed by the Secondary Schools Examination Council that they had decided to review the situation in the light of their experience. They said they would then report to me. I am now awaiting their report. When I receive that report, I will make up my mind about it as quickly as possible.

Sir H. Williams: Will the right hon. Lady ask the Secondary Schools Examination Council to advise us as to whether hares and tortoises always run at the same speed?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Bulb Corms and Tubers (Import)

Mr. G. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the quota of bulb corms and tubers to be imported during 1952.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): The quota has not yet been decided. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.

Mr. Baker White: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that, immediately following his cancellation of the open general licence for the importation of bulbs, corms and rhizomes, the Dutch exporters wrote to importers and other buyers in this country asking them to send in all further orders immediately, back-dated to the week prior to the cancellation of the open general licence; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with this calculated evasion of his order.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. A number of importers have informed the Board of Trade that Dutch exporters have written to them in this sense. I have given instructions that applications for licences to import bulbs against outstanding contracts should be examined with particular care, and that no licences should be issued until further notice for autumn deliveries. By the end of March, however, applications to import bulbs for spring delivery amounted to only £44,000, which does not appear to be an excessive figure, considering that imports last year exceeded £4 million. Any person who makes any false statement, or furnishes any document or information false in a material particular, for the purpose of obtaining an import licence is, of course, liable to heavy penalties.

Tea (Export Duties)

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the President of the Board of Trade what are the export duties now levied on tea exported by India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Indonesia to this country; and if, in order to reduce the price of tea in Britain, he will make representations to these countries to reduce or abolish these duties.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The current export duties on tea are as follows:

India—4 annas per lb.
Pakistan—3 annas per lb.
Ceylon—35 cents per lb.
Indonesia—Nil.

I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by representations at the present time to secure the reduction or abolition of these duties. I should point out, however, that Pakistan and Ceylon have recently reduced them, and Indonesia suspended the duty of 8 per cent. as from 1st April, 1951.

Mr. Reid: Is it not a fact that sometimes these export duties mean that those countries are compelling the consumer of tea in Britain to contribute to their revenue?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Of course these export taxes are part of the fiscal policy of the countries concerned and, as such, are in the first instance primarily a matter for them.

Film Quota Defaults

Mr. Woodrow Wyatt: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the number of members of the Quota Defaults Sub-Committee of the Films Council which advises the Films Council on the institution of prosecutions against defaulters under the Cinematograph Act, 1948; and how many of them are exhibitors who themselves defaulted in the year ending September, 1951.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Twelve of the Council's 22 members are regular members of the Defaults Committee, but any member of the Council may attend the committee's meetings. There is also a technical sub-committee of four members, including one producer, one distributor and two exhibitors of whom one is a director of an exhibiting company which at certain of its theatres did not, in the year ended 30th September, 1951, show the prescribed number of British films. On this point, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his Question on 20th March. I may add that in the matter of these prosecutions, the Film Council's functions are advisory and it is a matter for the Board of Trade to decide whether a prosecution should be instituted.

Mr. Wyatt: As the right hon. Gentleman told me previously that four of these


people were themselves representing exhibitors who had defaulted under the Quota Act, will he in future take great care to disregard their advice, because the advice of people not to prosecute themselves cannot be very reliable?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The former answer referred to the Films Council generally; this refers to the technical sub-committee. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in the question of these prosecutions the final decision is with me, and I will certainly bear in mind the point he has raised.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the President of the Board of Trade in what places 23 cinemas belonging to the Associated British Cinema circuit failed to fulfil their quota obligations during the quota year ended September, 1951; and in which cases he proposes to institute proceedings against them.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the theatres owned or managed by Associated British Cinemas Limited at which less than the prescribed quota of British films was shown.
The company has applied in all these cases for a certificate under Section 13 of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1938, that failure to achieve the quota was due to circumstances beyond the company's control. Before determining these applications, I have a statutory obligation to consult the Cinematograph Films Council and consider their advice; this I am at present doing. Until the applications have been determined, no one can say whether or not prosecution will be appropriate in all or any of the cases. But I should in any event regard it as improper to give advance notice about whether I was proposing to prosecute in any particular case.

Mr. Wyatt: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there was any peculiar difficulty about the places in which these cinemas were situated? Does he realise that this company regularly defaults year after year and is never prosecuted, that in the year before it defaulted in 305 cinemas, and that there was not a single prosecution brought against it?

Mr. Thorneycroft: As to the question of whether there was particular difficulty

in the location of the cinemas, that would be a matter for the court if and when a prosecution was instituted. As to the machinery laid down for investigating these cases, it was approved in the Act of 1948 passed by the hon. Gentleman's own Government.

Following is the list:

Theatres controlled by the A.B.C. circuit which did not show the prescribed quota (30 per cent.) of British first feature films in the exhibitors' quota year ended 30th September, 1951

Plaza, Basingstoke.
Astoria, Aston, Birmingham.
Bristol, Birmingham.
Forum, Birmingham.
Hippodrome, Blackpool.
Grand, Westhourne, Bournemouth.
Astoria, Brighton.
Queens, Cardiff.
Regal, Dewsbury.
Capitol, Horsham.
Grand, Huddersfield.
Empire, Islington.
Coliseum, Walton, Liverpool.
Victory, Walton, Liverpool.
Ritz, Luton.
Don, Ancoats, Manchester.
Elite, Nottingham.
Hippodrome, Nuneaton.
Electra, Oxford.
Granby, Reading.
Regal, St. Leonards-on-Sea.
Imperial, Walsall.
Palace, Walsall.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now make a statement as to the number of prosecutions it is proposed to institute in respect of quota defaults for the year ended, September, 1951.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: A number of individual cases are now being examined, in consultation with the Cinematograph Films Council. I propose to prosecute in appropriate cases but obviously cannot say in advance how many there may be.

Mr. Wyatt: This is very encouraging news, but as there were 771 defaulters on first-feature films last year, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be at least 100 prosecutions in respect of these defaults?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I think it would not be judicial of me to start prosecuting on a percentage basis.

North-East Lancashire

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now designate North-East Lancashire as a development area.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I am aware of the problems of North-East Lancashire, but I am not satisfied that the course proposed by the hon. Member would be appropriate at the present time.

Mr. Hynd: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the local planning authorities comprising the Lancashire County Council, the County Borough of Blackburn and the County Borough of Burnley have decided that this is one of the essential steps towards doing something to help the Lancashire textile industry in its present difficulties? Does he also appreciate the advantages in the way of facilities for licences, grants, and so forth, that a simple administrative step like this would give to that district, and will he not look at this proposal again?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I will, of course, look sympathetically at any suggestions put forward to deal with what is a very difficult problem in that area. At the same time we ought to look a little more widely at it—whether it is technically a development area or not—and I would rather concentrate at the moment in trying to get some contracts into that area.

Mr. Richard Fort: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, if he will make that area into a development area, it will make it much easier for industrialists who may be bringing new industries to East Lancashire, which we urgently want, to get the licences, particularly for steel, and they cannot do that as long as that area is in its present indeterminate situation?

Mr. Thorneycroft: If my hon. Friend has examples of industrialists who wish to start a new industry in that area, and would like to call my attention to that matter, I shall be happy to discuss it with him. I do not think the question of whether it is a development area or not would stand in the way.

Mr. Tom Brown: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is not aware that one of his predecessors gave a reply in similar words when we were pleading for South-West Lancashire to be designated as a development area, and that when we brought pressure to bear upon him, he agreed? Is the Minister also aware of the immense success which was the result of the persuasive powers of hon. Members on this side of the House in making

South-West Lancashire a development area? I know that the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the position in North-East Lancashire and we are anxious to help him, and one of the ways he can render help to it is by designating it as a development area.

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am quite ready to listen to arguments put forward upon this subject and to give them sympathetic consideration. At the same time, what is wanted is not the technical designation of an area as one category or another. What is wanted is work and the bringing of contracts into the area. It is on that rather practical aspect of the matter that I prefer to concentrate at the moment.

Mr. Hynd: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall try to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible date.

Anglo-Argentine Trade Discussions

Mr. William Teeling: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any statement to make about the progress of the Anglo-Argentine trade discussions.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The discussions on trade matters which both Governments are required to hold under the Agreement on Trade and Payments concluded with Argentina on 27th June, 1949, and the Protocol to this Agreement of 23rd April, 1951, are now being held in Buenos Aires. They have, however, so far been informal and exploratory and there is nothing which could usefully be reported to the House at the present stage.

Mr. Teeling: In view of the large number of Questions which have been put to the Minister of Food on this matter in recent weeks, can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the other trade matters that were very much in evidence last year are equally being taken care of this year?

Mr. Thorneycroft: All relevant matters are under consideration and can be raised in these discussions.

Mr. Charles Royle: How many representatives of private enterprise are engaged in these discussions?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Her Majesty's Ambassador is in charge of these discussions.

Broccoli Imports

Mr. Baker White: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the quota of broccoli imports authorised by his Department for the period ended 31st March was exceeded by a substantial margin; and what steps he proposes to take, in view of the ample home crop, to ensure that the quota for the period commencing 1st April is not exceeded.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. I would, however, like to remind my hon. Friend that it is our practice on the one hand to allow these import quotas to be exceeded when we are advised that home supplies will not be sufficient to meet the needs of the home consumer, and on the other hand to suspend imports when we are advised that home supplies are sufficient.
The announced quota for the period 1st April-30th June, 1952, was 2,500 tons, subject to review in the light of supplies available from home production. As home supplies are satisfactory, I have again taken steps to suspend imports after consultation with my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Minister of Food. I am also examining with them how the present arrangements for operating these quotas can be improved.

Mr. Baker White: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask if he is aware that in the last quota period the quota was exceeded by 2,500 tons, and that when that excess was coming in both Kent and Cornish broccoli was available in large quantities but was unsaleable in the markets? May I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the way to arrange the quota is not by means of a lump figure for a long period but by so much per month?

Mr. Thorneycroft: While I appreciate the point raised by my hon. Friend, I think he will at least find my answer satisfactory to the extent that the quota has been suspended altogether for the period to which I referred.

Mr. David Renton: Is it still the policy of the Government to give home broccoli growers first place in the home market?

Mr. Thorneycroft: If my hon. Friend studies the answer I have given, he will see that it is the position of the home

grower which determines in our minds the amount of the quota which we allow.

Mr. George Brown: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the price of broccoli is still extremely high? What steps are being taken by the Minister or by his right hon. Friends in shutting out imports, to hold the prices down or to get them down lower?

Mr. Thorneycroft: That is a Question which should properly be addressed to my right hon. Friends.

Mr. G. Brown: Surely, that must have been part of the consideration which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the question. He cannot decide to shut out imports without considering the price which is ruling in the shops. He told us that he consulted his right hon. Friends the Ministers of Agriculture and Food. At those consultations, what steps did they decide to take in order to deal with the price question?

Mr. Thorneycroft: There are two sides to this question. There are those who want to support the growers of the home broccoli and those who, on the other hand, want adequate supplies of broccoli so that the price may be quite reasonable. Those interests are to some extent conflicting. What we do is, in consultation with my right hon. Friends, to try to hold the balance fairly and evenly between them.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister satisfied that 2s. or 2s. 6d. for a broccoli is a reasonable price in view of the fact that the quota has been exceeded and that there are ample home supplies?

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: In view of what is happening to other food prices, is not the consideration advanced by my right hon. Friend very important, and ought not the Minister to consider again the prohibition of imports in order to ensure that the price is not too high?

Mr. Thorneycroft: All these matters are considered in weighing the amount of quota which should be allowed for any particular period.

Mr. Baker White: Is my right hon. Friend aware that broccoli in the shops in London today are on an average 3d. or 4d. cheaper than this time a year ago, when the other party were in power?

Oral Answers to Questions — POLLING BOOTHS (NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPHERS)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent under his regulations newspaper photographers are permitted to operate inside polling booths whilst electors are casting their votes.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): My right hon. and learned Friend has no power to make regulations on this subject, but under the rules in the Second Schedule to the Representation of the People Act, 1949, the only persons who may be admitted to a polling station except for the purpose of voting are the candidates, their election and polling agents, the polling officials, the constables on duty and the companions of blind voters.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that the London "Evening Standard," on the 3rd of this month, published on the front page a photograph of one of the electors at Abingdon Street dropping her vote into the box? Will he make inquiries to find out how the Press were able to be inside this polling booth whilst the London County Council elections were in progress?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I was not aware of the case to which the hon. Member refers, but I will see that it is looked into.

Oral Answers to Questions — BLACKPOOL AND FYLDE HOSPITALS (CONSULTANT PHYSICIANS)

Mr. Roland Robinson: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the concern of the Blackpool Executive Council and Local Medical Committee with regard to the position of consultant physicians on the staff of the Blackpool and Fylde Hospitals where there is now only one consultant physician available instead of three as approved by the Manchester Regional Board; and whether, in the public interest, he will request the regional board to accelerate action in this matter.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): Yes, Sir. I am informed that an additional part-time

consultant is to be appointed before the end of this month and that he will take up his duties as soon as possible thereafter.

Mr. Robinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is quite impossible for one consultant to serve this large area, which extends from Fleetwood through Blackpool to Lytham St. Annes and Kirkham, and will she put pressure on the Manchester Regional Board to see that the whole of the vacancies as established are filled before there is a large influx of visitors in the summer holiday season?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I understand that the establishment in the area is three but that there are two vacancies, one of them as a result of sickness. The second vacancy is being filled by the appointment I have just announced. I think that this will go a long way to meet the need in that area.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Research)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

45. MR. JANNER,—To ask the Minister of Agriculture if he will give an assurance that every effort is being made in this country by way of research to combat foot-and-mouth disease; and if he will ensure that his research establishments investigate methods successfully used in other countries.

Mr. Julian Snow: On a point of order. As my hon. Friend is not here to ask Question No. 45, and in view of the public disquiet about the information applied for in the Question, do you think, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Agriculture could be invited to give the answer after Question time?

Mr. Speaker: I have stated the rule on that point several times, which is that unless the Minister makes representations to me I cannot move in the matter.

Workers

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many agricultural workers in the South-Western Region have left the land to work in factories for each of the years 1949, 1950 and


1951; what was the cause of this exodus; and what he proposes to do to encourage men to remain in this important industry.

The Minister of Agriculture (Major Sir Thomas Dugdale): Statistics of former agricultural workers working in factories are not available. The total number of agricultural workers in the South-Western Region in June, 1948, was 90,364. This rose to 92,159 in June, 1949, fell to 91,449 in June, 1950, and then to 86,797 by June, 1951. The net loss of 3,567 workers was by no means wholly to factories, but many farm workers have undoubtedly left the land for industry during the last two years. It has been a period of keen competition for labour everywhere and of industrial development in many rural areas. In answer to the last part of the hon. Member's Question I would refer him to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) on 21st February and to my remarks in the agricultural debate on 4th April.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that there has been a general drift from agriculture and from the land into the factories in that area, caused by better conditions and wages obtainable in the factories? Will he take steps to have the wages of the farm workers in that area revised so that there will be an incentive for workers to remain on the farms and on the land, instead of going to the factories?

Sir T. Dugdale: The question of wages is not my responsibility. That is entirely in the hands of the Agricultural Wages Board.

Mr. G. Brown: Does not the Minister think that some part of the reason why men have left the land arises from the increase in mechanisation which has taken place in agriculture, which must mean greater productivity per man, but lead to there being fewer men on the land?

Sir T. Dugdale: I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. A. J. Champion: Would not the Minister agree that this makes all the more serious the failure of the Government to provide a sufficiency of capital equipment to enable this industry to expand as it would wish to with necessary equipment to prevent the loss of manpower being serious?

Sir T. Dugdale: I dealt with that point during the debate. I am satisfied that with the capital equipment available we can still further increase the food production of this country. A very good feature, so far as the labour position is concerned, is the number of young people coming into the industry.

Quarterly Returns

Mr. Robert Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture what percentage of the quarterly agriculture returns are received within the first 14 days of the due date, the first 28 days; and what is the percentage outstanding eight weeks after the due date.

Sir T. Dugdale: About 78 per cent. are received within 14 days of the due date, and 97 per cent. within 28 days. Three per cent. are outstanding eight weeks after the due date.

Mr. Crouch: May I ask my right hon. and gallant Friend if he feels there is any real value in proceeding with the collection of quarterly returns?

Sir T. Dugdale: At the present time I think there is. There are a good many statistics required, and I am satisfied that quarterly returns are necessary.

Mr. G. Brown: Can the Minister tell us whether the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch), is among the 97 per cent. or the 3 per cent.

Allotments

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many allotment holders have been deprived of their allotments since the war; how many have given them up voluntarily; and what is being done to encourage the growth of vegetables to make up for this land going out of cultivation.

Sir T. Dugdale: I regret that the figures required are not available. Although the total number of allotments is now considerably less than the peak war-time figure, there has been a steady increase since the war in the number of permanent and privately owned allotments. Local authorities have been asked to do all that is possible to provide alternative plots for displaced allotment holders.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that there is an impression abroad that


the number of allotments has dropped since the war by half a million, and that as a consequence there is a loss in the production of vegetables, and what is he proposing to do to make up that loss?

Sir T. Dugdale: It is very difficult to get accurate figures, but since 1948 there has been an increase in the total acreage of land used for allotments. So far as the vegetable position is concerned, I think it is agreed that, generally, the production of vegetables is adequate, apart from potatoes, in respect of which a special appeal has been made to farmers, allotment holders and gardeners to plant more this spring for consumption next year.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that the figures I have given regarding the reduction of allotment land come from men who have studied this problem, and who are concerned that the reduction in the number of allotments is very considerable indeed.

Sir T. Dugdale: My point is that since 1948 there has been an increase. I have to agree that there has been a big reduction since the peak war-time period.

Feedingstuffs

Mr. G. Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture the total amount of feedingstuffs in the ration pool for the current ration year; the estimated amount to be distributed to domestic poultry keepers; and an estimate of the approximate addition to this necessary to enable a 25 per cent. bonus to be issued to members of domestic poultry keepers' clubs.

Sir T. Dugdale: The total quantity of feedingstuffs in the ration pool for Great Britain in the year ending 30th April, 1952, is 4.9 million tons, of which 93,000 tons is the estimated quantity distributed to domestic poultry keepers. In reply to the last part of the Question, the additional quantity required might be between 2,000 and 5,000 tons in the first year, according to the effect of such a bonus in increasing membership of domestic poultry clubs.

Mr. Brown: Does not the Minister think, in the light of those figures, that it is silly not to take this step, which would considerably raise the egg production of this country and ease our egg supply position? Does not he further

think that the reply given to me last week by his hon. Friend, in which he referred to the commercial poultry keepers, leads folk to think that this is more protection for the commercial poultry keepers than for any other sensible purpose?

Sir T. Dugdale: I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point. The real point here is that the total supply of feedingstuffs available does not admit of any increase in the rations for poultry at either commercial or domestic level.

Mr. Brown: Really, out of 4.9 million tons the extra 2,000 or 4,000 tons must be well within the margin of error on which the Department of the right hon. Gentleman already works. In fact, the difference between the number of domestic hen owners and the number we had at the peak period represents the rations of several million people every year. Since my wife is getting only two eggs per book at this time, which is supposed to be the flush period, ought we to refuse this very good and useful extra source?

Sir T. Dugdale: If I accepted what the right hon. Gentleman said, there is no doubt that all the domestic poultry keepers would expect to be treated alike.

Mr. Brown: They should join a club.

Sir T. Dugdale: I think the very strength of the poultry club movement, in which the right hon. Gentleman is so interested, must be based on trying to make the maximum use of household waste, and I do not feel I would be justified in authorising an increase of their ration at the expense of commercial poultry keepers.

Mr. G. Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will now give further consideration to the feedingstuffs rationing schemes with a view to their simplification and the abolition of the present datum year basis.

Sir T. Dugdale: I am always ready to consider suggestions for a revised rationing scheme for feedingstuffs, but so far it has not proved possible to find a revised scheme which will neither dislocate production nor create more anomalies than it removes.

Mr. Brown: Is not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that everyone feels that the reduction of this datum


line is by itself perhaps the most hampering barrier to increased production for specialist producers? Is he further aware that in every farming newspaper every week there are stories about the enormous black market developing in coupons? Does not he think that that suggests we have probably reached the point at which we could do away with feedingstuffs rationing?

Sir T. Dugdale: That raises a very large issue. I entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said as to the unsatisfactory nature of the present position. But I must remind him, and I think he will be aware of this, that the Feedingstuffs Advisory Committee have considered suggestions during the past few years for changing the basis of the ration but up to now have been unable to find any scheme which met with their approval. I have this point very much in mind, and if I could find a fair and equitable alternative I should be the first to change the present arrangement.

Mr. Brown: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind there is some reason for thinking that the Feedingstuffs Advisory Committee might include what I might call "vested interests" in this matter and perhaps he needs to get advice from other quarters?

Sir T. Dugdale: I do not accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but I am prepared to consider suggestions on this subject from any quarter. If any hon. Member of this House has any suggestion, I will gladly look into it.

Mr. Crouch: May I ask why the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Brown) is so concerned about the feedingstuffs position today and how he comes to be so innocent of what is happening about feedingstuffs now that he has left the Department?

Oral Answers to Questions — INCOME TAX (TRAVELLING EXPENSES)

Mr. Cyril W. Black: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent, under his Regulations, employees who receive their travelling expenses between home and place of business from their employers are liable to be assessed to Income Tax on the amount thereof.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): Under the general Income Tax law, any payment by an employer of the expenses incurred by an employee in travelling from home to work would be chargeable with Income Tax in the hands of the employee.

Mr. Black: Would my hon. Friend look into this matter again and consider whether something can be done, in the altered circumstances of the day, having regard particularly to the very high level of fares and the different distances which different employees have to travel in going to the same place of business; and also the need at the present time to encourage people to change jobs in the national interest, which may mean their taking a job further away from home?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Any suggestion from my hon. Friend will, of course, be given full consideration. But I would remind him that the provision in question is not, as he suggests in his Question, part of the Regulations of my right hon. Friend, but is a long-standing part of the Income Tax law of this country.

Mr. E. Fletcher: This is a very important statement. May we take it from what the Minister has said that he would give sympathetic consideration to an Amendment during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill to give Income Tax relief to cover the greatly increased travel expenses because of high fares paid by people getting to and from their work?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is a hypothetical question.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. C. R. Attlee: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make about Questions to Ministers?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Harry Crookshank): As the House knows, suggestions have recently been made by hon. Members that Questions addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture on Thursdays, and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Tuesdays and Thursdays which are infrequently reached, should rotate with other Departments. I do not much like that word, but that is the technical description.

Mr. George Brown: They are in a flat spin. That is what it means. They are all going into it.

Mr. Crookshank: This suggestion has been considered through the usual channels and it is felt that Questions to Departments which come after the Prime Minister's Questions at No. 45 should all rotate—not only the Agriculture and the Treasury ones, but the Foreign Office, Board of Trade, Defence and Food as well. I suggest that we might well try this arrangement for an experimental period immediately after the Easter Recess and see if it meets with the difficulties. It does not have to be immutable. If it does not work out satisfactorily, we can think again, but it is the best suggestion I can put to the House today.

Mr. Attlee: I am not quite clear on the statement. Can we take it that Questions to the Minister of Agriculture, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the rest, will still rotate after Question No. 45 and not come before Question No. 45? It is not clear.

Mr. Crookshank: I thought that they were to join the rotation on that day, but if I have it wrong, I apologise. The matter has been cleared through the usual channels, I understand.

Mr. Attlee: I do not think that the usual channels were quite clear on this. I understand that hitherto these Questions had their special day after Question No. 45.

Mr. Crookshank: That is right.

Mr. Attlee: I understand now that they will rotate with other Questions, whether before or after.

Mr. Crookshank: No, only after. If they went into the general rotation, they might not emerge for quite a long time. At present it is fixed in this order: Agriculture, Treasury, Board of Trade, and so on. It is that rotation which is involved, as I understand it.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is it not a fact that all this difficulty about the number of Questions answered would not arise if hon. Members would show more restraint and put snappy supplementaries instead of the interminably long questions in which many hon. Members opposite indulge?

Mr. G. Brown: I cannot believe that the position is as the Leader of the House last put it to us. If it is, it will certainly not help Agriculture Questions at all. It will make the position very much worse. I assume that the point is that these Questions, which come after Question No. 45, seldom get reached and that they are now to go into the general rotation on that day, so that once in a number of weeks Agriculture Questions will be first, then second, third, and so on. I understand that that will be the position, and it seems worth trying. But I ask the Leader of the House whether it is not a fact that once before Agriculture Questions were in that position but were taken out and made firm after Question No. 45 simply because we found that we so infrequently got to those Questions that we could not deal with policy. I hope the Leader of the House will stick to the point that this is not immutable, but only experimental, and that we may have a look at this matter again. Personally, I agree with the solution suggested by the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams).

Mr. Crookshank: I think I have it clear now. I apologise. This is just an experiment. The right hon. Gentleman is right. These Questions used to be in the general list and then, because it was sometimes so long before they emerged, that Department were given a firm place at Question No. 45. That does not seem to have worked out either, so it is proposed, as an experiment, to go back to the general rotation and see if that works any better. It failed earlier but, after all, in the old days these difficulties did not arise. I am not sure how far they are merely connected with the general increase in the number of Questions or how far the difficulty arises from the greater number of Questions which are asked early in the Session rather than late and, I should imagine, early in the lifetime of a Government rather than late. There are various factors which have been mentioned which militate against the smooth running of Questions. I think the only course is for the House to give this a trial as an experiment. The right hon. Gentleman's interpretation is quite right. If I gave too snappy an answer, I apologise.

Captain J. A. L. Duncan: May I ask how many Departments will rotate after Question No. 45? I think my right hon.


Friend mentioned the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Ministry of Agriculture. Are there any others? Will it be once every third week that we shall get the Ministry of Agriculture Questions after Question No. 45?

Mr. Crookshank: They will not be after Question No. 45. They are coming into the general rotation. How often they will come is a matter for those concerned in the working out of these most elaborate schedules.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: Is not the cause of the difficulty that the system by which Questions were put after those to the Prime Minister so that they might be reached has broken down, because nowadays they are not reached? Is it not true that the system now proposed by the Leader of the House is that only Questions to the Prime Minister should be fixed and that all others should rotate?

Mr. Crookshank: That is right.

Mr. William Ross: Would the right hon. Gentleman consult the Secretary of State for Scotland about these arrangements and also take into account Scottish opinion in the House? This means that on Tuesdays it will take very much longer before Scottish Questions come to the top of the list. As the right hon. Gentleman will realise, Scottish Members have to address various Questions to one Department whereas English Members can ask Questions of about five or six

different Ministers. We have to tie down our Questions to one Minister on one day. If this new system retards us still further, Scotland, which disappears from Question time for five or six weeks, will now disappear for between seven and eight weeks.

Mr. Noel-Baker: May I ask a further question on a point of clarification? In what I last said I was wrong. In addition to the Prime Minister's Questions remaining fixed, will not Questions to the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, the Charity Commission and the Church Commissioner also remain fixed?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is becoming a debate. Private Members' day has to be considered.

BILL PRESENTED

AGRICULTURE (PLOUGHING GRANTS) BILL

"to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants in respect of the ploughing up of land under grass and the carrying out of further operations on the land after ploughing," presented by Major Sir Thomas Dugdale; supported by Mr. James Stuart, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter and Mr. Nugent; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday 21st April, and to be printed. [No. 85.]

BLITZED AREAS (RECONSTRUCTION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Butcher.]

12.9 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Morley: I am glad to have this opportunity, with other hon. Members, who represent such areas, of raising once more in the House the question of the blitzed areas and endeavouring to obtain from the representative of Her Majesty's Government a definite statement as to what their policy will be in the immediate future in order to help in the reconstruction of these areas.
The inhabitants of many towns and cities suffered considerably during the last war, but it would not be unfair to say that the sufferings of the citizens of the blitzed towns, and the dangers which they ran, were greater than those of the citizens of towns which were not subject to enemy action in the same way. The citizens of blitzed towns, like those elsewhere, lost fathers, husbands, sons and other relatives as casualties in the Armed Forces. Since most of the heavily blitzed towns were ports, they also had considerable losses in the Mercantile Marine. In addition to those losses, of course, they had great civilian losses from enemy action, and suffered very great damage indeed to the property in their towns.
Those losses and dangers were borne with considerable fortitude, because it was known that they had to be borne in the national interest. The women, particularly, were very brave in the blitzed towns during the heavy concentrated enemy raids during the night. I was at Passchendaele and on the Somme during the First World War, and I would rather have to walk the duckboards at Passchendaele again than sit in a shelter during an all-night raid wondering whether the next bomb was going to make a direct hit on that shelter.
As I say, these perils and dangers were very bravely borne, and these losses courageously suffered, because they were in the national interest, but the citizens of the blitzed towns were of the opinion that, as soon as the war was over, materials, capital and labour would be assigned to those towns to repair the

damage done. In my own town of Southampton we had, during the war, 5,000 houses completely destroyed and many thousands of others very badly damaged. In addition to that, during three very concentrated night raids, the enemy destroyed practically the whole of the shopping and business centre of the town.
Since 1945, in Southampton—and I am only quoting Southampton because I think it is fairly typical of the other heavily blitzed towns—we have been able, by taking advantage of the admirable housing policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), which he carried through with such great administrative skill, to build just over 5,000 council houses, but that, of course, has little more than restored the losses we suffered during the war, and there is in the heavily blitzed towns a housing problem which is graver than the housing problems which still exist in other towns. So far as the damage to shops, offices and business premises generally is concerned, very little has been done so far to reconstruct them.
In one area in Southampton, the Compulsory Purchase Order No. 4 area, there is about £1 million worth of reconstruction waiting to be done, and only about half of that work has been started. The area came under the control of the council some three or four years ago, and, so long as the reconstruction of that area is not completed, that area will continue to be a liability, not only on the council, but also upon the lessees. In addition, the reconstruction of the damaged shops, office buildings and churches will be dependent upon obtaining permission for road works and drainage works.
These losses, of course, have meant considerable losses in rateable value to the blitzed towns affected. The loss in rateable value in Southampton, as compared with the pre-blitz year, is no less than £133,000. The loss of rateable value in Plymouth, I am informed, is £184,000, as compared with the pre-blitz. On the other hand, towns which were not subjected to enemy action in that respect have increased their rateable value since 1945 fairly substantially.
For example, Reading, which is no very great distance from either Plymouth or Southampton, has increased its rateable value by £239,000 since 1940 Of


course, the rateable value of blitzed towns has been increased by the building of council houses, but council houses are not altogether an asset, so far as rateable value is concerned, because they receive a subsidy from the rates and also attract a considerable amount towards expenditure on the social services, such as health and education. On the other hand, shops, offices and buildings of that kind are highly rated as a rule; at least, they are considerably more highly rated than council houses, and attract very little expenditure for social services.
Therefore, until the shops and offices are reconstructed, the towns which suffered heavy blitz damage during the war are bound to suffer in the restoration of their former rateable value. It will be no good the Minister trying to ride off in his reply with the statement that towns like Plymouth and Southampton have rates which are not so high as those of some other county boroughs, and that their rateable value per head of the population is above the average of some other county boroughs, because, of course, the assessments differ very much from one town to another. In Southampton, we have always made our assessments at a rather high level, whereas those of other authorities have not been at such a high level, so that there is no valid comparison between one authority and another so far as rateable value per head of the population is concerned.
Although the actual rate poundage in Southampton may be less than it is in some other cases, because Southampton properties have always been fairly highly assessed, it is quite possible that, comparing a house in Southampton with one of a similar size in another county borough, although the actual rate poundage is less in Southampton than in the other town, the ratepayers will be paying a larger sum in rates in Southampton than is being paid in the other county boroughs.
When the Derating Act, 1930, was put into operation, there was a provision by which a block grant was made to every local authority to compensate it for the loss of rates due to the operation of that Act, and citizens in places like Southampton do not see why, because of their reduction in rateable value, they should have to suffer losses borne in the national interest but not suffered, in areas where no blitz occurred, especially as, in

many cases, they also have to make a payment for repairs to damage done to other property during the course of the war, for which payment had not been made by the War Damage Commission because the notifications were received too late.
There is, therefore, still a very strong case indeed for continuing the assistance from the Government to the blitzed areas in their work of reconstruction, and there are two questions that we should especially like to address to the Minister, and with which we hope he will deal in his reply. The first question is: What is to be the capital allocation to the blitzed towns during the current year? Under the last Government, the blitzed towns knew what their allocations were to be during the year, and, in the last year, the total capital allocation for the blitzed towns amounted to over £4 million, of which I think Southampton had £250,000 and Plymouth had £550,000.
We have been trying to ascertain what is to be the capital allocation for the blitzed cities this year. We have put down Questions from time to time to Ministers on the point and we have received nothing but dusty, evasive answers. Unless local authorities know what their capital allocation is to be for the current year they cannot plan ahead and determine their priorities. Once one determines priorities one can inform the firms concerned and they can get ready with their plans, and contracts. While this allocation of capital expenditure is still uncertain there can be no continuity of work in the reconstruction of these areas.
We know nothing certain; no definite figure has been given to us so far. We have heard a number of rumours, of course, which may or may not be well founded. We have heard rumours that the capital allocation to the blitzed cities will be cut to the bone. We should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, when he replies, how much of the £100 million cut in capital expenditure which was referred to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer during his speech in the economic debate and in his Budget statement will be imposed upon the blitzed cities.
We put forward the plea that, in view of the sacrifices that were made by those


cities during the war, in view of the long time which has elapsed since the end of the war, and in view of the fact that a great deal of reconstruction has yet to be done, the blitzed cities should have reasonable priority in capital allocation and that they should not share—or if they do share, they should share very little indeed—in the £100 million cut proposed by the Chancellor.
The other matter on which we should like to press the Minister for a reply is the allocation of steel. Questions have been put down by a number of hon. Members to the relevant Ministers asking for a statement on what are to be the steel allocations to the blitzed towns. There, again, no statement has been made. But, strangely enough, although no statement has been elicited from any Minister, the amounts of steel to be allocated to the blitzed towns have been published in the Press. The amounts have been stated in the "Western Morning News" and in the "Southern Daily Echo." I am aware that both those journals have very competent Parliamentary correspondents and that they are both important journals with considerable circulations, but I should have thought they should not have been given this news before it was given to Members of Parliament.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): Is the hon. Member suggesting that a Minister has given information to a newspaper and is refusing to give it to hon. Members? Is that the allegation?

Mr. Morley: No, I am not making any allegation. I am stating a fact, that apparently newspapers have the knowledge of the amount of steel to be allocated to blitzed cities before hon. Members were informed by answers from Ministers. The Press obtain the news while hon. Members are denied it. According to the statement in the Press, Southampton is to receive 145 tons of steel in the second quarter of this year. My information from a very responsible member of Southampton Borough Council is that this quantity of steel will be nothing like sufficient to meet the immediate needs of construction in the area.
I understand that the steel supply position has been somewhat ameliorated. It has been stated in the Press that by the end of this year home production will be 16,500,000 tons and that we shall receive one million tons from the United States, making a total of 17,500,000 tons, which, I think, will be sufficient to meet our needs. We want an assurance from the Minister that the blitzed towns will receive their fair allocation of steel. By "fair" I mean that they will have some priority owing to their needs. With the prospect of 17½ millions tons of steel being available during the year, by the end of the year there should be enough to give an allocation to all the heavily blitzed towns to enable them to get on with their work.
I do not want to make this a party matter at all. It should not be considered a party matter because there are representatives of blitzed towns on both sides of the House and hon. Members on both sides equally are very anxious that the construction work in their constituencies should proceed as speedily as possible. But although I do not raise this as a party matter, and I hope it will not be considered to be so in this debate, there were Conservative candidates during the last Election who made it a party matter. I quote from the Election address of my own Conservative opponent:
Southampton has suffered in two ways—(a) by the cessation of house building during the war, (b) by enemy action. Mr. Churchill said in March, 1945, 'Victory lies before us, certain and perhaps near. Of course, we must first concentrate on those parts of our cities and towns which have suffered most.'
That was a policy of priority for blitzed towns, and my Conservative opponent in his election address promised priority of construction for blitzed towns if a Conservative Government were returned. I believe there are unkind people who are going round saying that the Conservative Government have not yet carried out the promises made to the electorate. That was another promise made—

Mr. Marples: In 1945.

Mr. Morley: Surely, if a promise was made in 1945 and the Conservative Government were not returned until 1951, there is all the more reason why promises made six years before should be fulfilled immediately. I hope that this is not


another of the Conservative promises which will be put in that wallet in which Time "puts alms for oblivion." I ask the Minister to deal firmly, in his reply, with what are to be the capital allocations for blitzed cities in the coming year and to tell us what amount of steel will be available for them. Those are the two questions which the local authorities of the blitzed areas are anxious to have answered and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a favourable answer to them.

12.30 p.m.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: I am always glad, as a Member representing a blitzed city, to hear debates on blitzed cities in this House. We have had quite a considerable number of them, although when I was in Opposition I never noticed the same enthusiasm from hon. Members opposite as I have noticed since the change of Government. They are now even prepared to give up their holiday and to stay here and fight like anything. I gave up my holiday the whole time, both in Government and in Opposition, to fight for blitzed cities, and I will always go on doing so. The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Morley) said that he did not wish to bring party politics into this matter, but then proceeded to do so for all he was worth. Obviously, therefore, he will not be surprised if I have my share of party politics also.
We all know what the present Prime Minister said in 1945, which the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen, quoted to us. Naturally, the Prime Minister would like to see the blitzed cities rebuilt, and he will. There is, I think, a very old saying which runs:
One year's seeding, seven years' weeding.
We have had six years of Socialist Government, six years of waste, rot and seeding, and by the same token it might take 42 years to get rid of that rot if the saying I have just quoted is true.
Anybody who knows anything about building knows perfectly well that it is much easier to destroy than to build. At the end of the war we saw men standing on the tops of blitzed houses knocking them down at a very rapid rate, even under a Socialist Government. That was quite easy. But it is far more difficult

to build. Surely, we cannot as a party be accused of having no interest in this matter just because in six months of office we have not restored the blitzed cities to their former eminence.
I think we re-started these Adjournment debates on blitzed cities within six weeks of the Conservative Government coming into power, and we were then asked why we had not kept our promise. That is rather comic.

Dr. Horace King: rose—

Brigadier Clarke: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman because I have only a short time, and I think Plymouth might want to have a word.
We were immediately attacked for not putting right within a few weeks the whole of the Socialist mismanagement and rot. We have now had six months, but it takes a bit of time to build a house. On taking over we found a steel shortage. It should be remembered that the steel industry was nationalised against the better judgment of the then Opposition. That should never be forgotten. Steel was imported into this country in the form of iron ore until the coal situation under a Socialist Government made it necessary to bring in coal instead. That fact should also be remembered. There was never a shortage of steel when private enterprise ran the industry. Is that another of the good things we can remember about six years of Socialist rule?
I know that the Prime Minister has tried to get the people of this country to pull together for the benefit of the country. That is a most laudable thing to do, but, unfortunately, owing to Socialist propaganda, he has been thoroughly misunderstood. It has been taken as weakness. It is not weakness; it is merely a desire to put the country's interest before party interest. If we have to go back to party politics, then do not let us pull any punches. We have seen enough obstruction in the House during the past few weeks simply because, as the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said last night, the party opposite would not let the Government's Bills go through.
The Government were voted in by constitutional methods and will put through the Measures which they were returned to pass. The Conservative Party will do that and will build the blitzed cities just


as soon as that can be done. We will restore the ravages of the Socialist Party which, so far, have prevented blitzed cities being rebuilt. My own City of Portsmouth would have been rebuilt to a far greater degree by now but for the silly restrictions placed on private building by the party opposite. Why should not a man who wants to build a house be allowed to do so? We have more council houses going up today than when the Socialists were in power, and, in addition, we are now getting private building as well. Is that not a good thing?
Would the party opposite wish to have fewer houses put up? Do not they think that somebody with £2,000 a year is just as entitled to have a house as a man who earns less than that figure? Those in different salary groups each have their troubles. Do not let us have class distinction in this matter. Let us build every house we can and always remember that, if a house is built by private enterprise, whoever occupies that house leaves another vacant into which someone else can go. Is not that what we are doing? What is the grouse about that?
The Socialists have brought class distinction into the matter the whole time. We are going to get the houses built, and the party opposite will have to eat their words and all the slurs that they have cast upon our efforts. I quite agree that the blitzed cities do not want party politics. They want to be rebuilt, as I pointed out time after time when we had a Socialist Government. Who are the best people to judge how a city should be rebuilt? The people living there, or the man in Whitehall about whom we have heard so much, the man who thinks Whitehall knows best?
Just before the council elections last year we had a debate on blitzed cities and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) made some astounding statements about blitzed cities and about why we could not get Portsmouth rebuilt. It all appeared in the Portsmouth "Evening News." It was a sop to try to get Socialists elected on the council. This year, in the L.C.C., they have been going round with bits of cheese and such like things bribing the people to vote for them. In three years' time the people who did vote for them will be very glad that they have got a Conservative Government,

and in future they will not vote Socialist even on the councils.
We have heard a lot about the allocation of steel and of money—capital allocation—to blitzed cities. These cities, of course, need both, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us that no information regarding the allocation of steel was made to two sections of the Press while the House and the rest of the Press were not informed. I know of no announcement about an allocation of steel being made in my local Press anyway. It is probably more responsible.
As for money, we do not want money until we can get the steel. Nothing is more important than houses. We are not interested in large buildings being put up or in having enormous town halls and similar things put up till we have got houses put up. What we want are houses, and I hope the Minister will allow us to go on building to the best of our ability. The situation in the blitzed cities has been appalling. For the last five years I have watched people living in absolute misery. During that time we appealed to the Government time after time to allow these cities to build as they wish. They wished to build the houses. But could we impress them? Not a bit of it. They did nothing to help Portsmouth at all. That city could by now have been rebuilt.
In 1942 we bought land, but were obstructed from building on it by the Socialist Government. That fact should go on record. I asked the two ex-Ministers of Health to come to Portsmouth to see the situation for themselves. They would not come, but within six weeks of the Conservative Government coming to power the Conservative Minister came down and saw the situation for himself. He gave that council and the people of Portsmouth enormous encouragement. They will not be sorry that they voted Tory in the last council election, and they will do so again.

12.40 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: It is very tempting to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke), but I shall only speak for a few minutes as I realise that the Minister wishes to reply.
I wish to deal with only one main point upon which we have had considerable


argument on previous occasions, but on which we have had very little clarification from the Ministry. We have asked that the Government should state what is the allocation under the capital investment programme for blitzed cities, and the reply of the Minister has always been, "It is not worth giving you that figure." Only yesterday the Minister said, "We have a figure; it is a general guide, but we cannot tell you what the figure is." If it is a general guide for the Ministry, it might also be a general guide for hon. Members, including those who represent blitzed cities.
I ask again that the figures which are available to the Ministry, and which indicate to the Ministry how much capital investment they are allowed to allocate for blitzed cities, should be made public so that we can compare how much is being allocated for blitzed cities with the amount allocated, for instance, for reconstruction purposes in new towns, and also so that we can compare the allocation for blitzed cities this year with the allocations for previous years. That is a perfectly fair question.
The second answer which the Ministry have given on other occasions is, "There is no purpose in giving you this figure because the figure may be exceeded, and it may be that events will turn out better later in the year, which will enable us to give you a higher figure. So why should we give you the capital investment figure which we have as a guide in our Department?" It would be quite all right if they told us the figure; if they find that they can increase the allocation later, they can do so. That is what was done by the Labour Government in the case of my own city last year. They gave us a capital investment figure at the beginning of the year. The developers were able to go ahead and prepare their plans. In August last year, when it was discovered that more capital investment allocation and more steel would be available, an extra allocation was given over and above the original allocation.
Why does the Minister continue to conceal this figure? I suggest that the real reason is that the Government have cut the capital investment allocation for blitzed cities to practically nothing, and that it is that fact which they are trying to conceal from the people in the blitzed cities by saying, "This is an irrelevant

factor." We know that there is still a general capital investment programme. The Ministry have admitted that they have a figure as a general guide. We say, let the public know what these figures are so that they can see what is the policy of this Government towards blitzed cities.
Our charge against this Government is not that in six months they have not been able to achieve tremendous things. Our charge is that within a month or so of coming into office they cut the capital investment allocation. They stopped the issue of licences. If we do not have an early issue of licences this year for blitzed cities, there will be a general hold-up in the whole of the reconstruction programmes.

12.43 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): If I may mention cuts, the eloquence of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) has made some inroads into the time at my disposal for answering the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Morley), who was fortunate enough to open this debate.
We all have a great deal of sympathy for the blitzed cities and their inhabitants. During the war they undoubtedly suffered a great deal, and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen, was quite correct in saying so. No one would suggest that this Government or the previous Government or any Government would dare to ignore the legitimate claims of the blitzed cities. Therefore, if I do not spend much time in developing the theme of our gratitude for blitzed cities and our sympathy with them, it is merely because time is short and not because my sympathies do not lie in that direction.
But sometimes it is possible to do the blitzed cities a dis-service by overstating the case and making party capital of it. Here I make no allegations against hon. Members on either side of the House, but it does not do the blitzed cities any service at all to make party propaganda out of what this Government has done or what the previous Government did. The great thing is to find out what can be done for the blitzed cities in the present circumstances.
I will not follow the point which the hon. Gentleman made about the present Prime Minister's speech in 1945, seven years ago, when he said, "We have just won a great victory, and in the years ahead the blitzed cities must be reconstructed," except to say that the decision of the nation did not give him at that time a chance of carrying out that promise. We had a Socialist Government for 6½ years and they had a fairly good chance of coping with the blitzed cities.
I should like to deal with one or two of the hon. Member's specific points before I come to the main issue. First of all, he said that since 1945 over 5,000 houses have been built but there is still a great housing problem. Here, I can relieve his anxiety in some respect, because if Southampton have the materials and resources available to build more houses they can apply to the principal regional officer of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in the area, and they can get a further instalment in order to build those houses. If any labour is redundant in the central area through lack of steel, that labour can be diverted to the very important task of building houses for the inhabitants of Southampton. I hope that when the hon. Gentleman goes back to his constituency he will make that point with great force—that if men and materials are available in Southampton, then by making application Southampton can have a further instalment.
The hon. Gentleman's second point was that there was a loss of rateable value. He said that the rateable value of Southampton was £133,000, and that they had not got back to their pre-war figure.

Mr. Morley: I said that it was £133,000 less than before the war.

Mr. Marples: I am sorry—£133,000 less than before the war.
He compared the rateable value with that of expanding towns. Surely the correct basis on which to calculate rateable value is rateable value per head of population. The Exchequer equalisation grant makes up to the poorer districts—county councils, county boroughs, and so on—any loss which they have when they are below the average in the country. So the richer county councils and county boroughs do not get this grant. It is

interesting to see that only 28 out of 83 county boroughs have a rateable value per head of population greater than the average in the country.
The average is about £6. For Portsmouth the figure is £6.3; Plymouth, £6.774; and Southampton is the richest of all, with £6.868. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Exchequer and the poorer local authorities should make a contribution to the richer authorities? In any case, this is not the place to discuss the Exchequer equalisation grants because that has been decided upon. It was introduced by the previous Government of which the hon. Gentleman was a supporter, and it was accepted by him as being fair and equitable.
Having dealt with those two or three specific points, may I now come to the thorny problems of steel and capital investment? In 1951 there were two limiting factors. The first was the capital investment programme, and the second was steel. In the earlier part of 1951 the controlling factor was capital investment, and it was only later in the year that steel really became the limiting factor. By 1952 the position was radically altered. Although the two limiting factors were still present, the controlling limiting factor—the one which dominated everything—was the shortage of steel.
Therefore, steel took the first place and capital investment took the second. The reason for that was the re-armament programme. I make no complaint about that; but hon. Members on both sides of the House must remember that this rearmament programme was hurriedly superimposed on an already overstrained economy without the care and diligence which, under normal conditions, would have been devoted to it. It was done quickly and the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said it was calculated only in monetary terms, and those monetary terms had not been broken down into the physical resources of men and materials.
In September, 1950, we started with a re-armament programme of £2,400 million which rose, in October to £3,600 million and in February, 1951, to £4,700 million. That was translated very hurriedly and not very accurately into materials and it meant that in 1952 the legacy which this Government received—


and I am making no complaint about that legacy—was a shortage of steel right throughout our economy.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen was wrong in imputing that any Minister had given to the Press any information about steel allocations before it had been given to the House. It was rather touching to hear the reliance he placed on information in the Press, and I hope that future Press Commissions will notice how he relies upon the Press for his information. The information referred to came from a paper to which his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport does not contribute, which makes his touching faith all the more remarkable.
What did we do when we were faced with the shortage of steel? The first thing was to get more steel from the United States of America. The Prime Minister got one million tons of steel, which was described by the other side of the House as the worst bargain ever made. But if he had not done that the blitzed cities would have had even less than now. The second thing we did was to ration it. In that connection, I want to make clear one or two points. The first is that the rationing was spread over four periods of this year, and the reason for spreading it in that way was that the Government could not be quite sure what would be the available supplies in the third and fourth period. They are not sure for a variety of quite legitimate reasons. There may be shipping difficulties in getting the steel from America, and we have read in the Press recently that there may be strike difficulties.

Mr. John McKay: Will the hon. Gentleman make that point clear? I understood him to say a moment ago that the steel had been secured from America. Now he seems to be explaining that the steel has not been secured.

Mr. Marples: A contract has been entered into by the Prime Minister whereby the United States of America gives us one million tons of steel this year. The actual delivery date of steel is the thing that counts. It may not arrive because of shortage of shipping or because it is not exported from the other end on the due date. If there is a strike in America and no steel is produced they cannot send it. But as far as we can see the steel should be here during this year. It will be coming in in these four periods

in different tonnages, and so it is not possible to forecast accurately what tonnage will be received in the third or fourth periods.
Therefore, we have this flexible system of allocation of steel in four periods. It is not possible to give the hon. Member for Devonport a neat and tidy figure in regard to steel which can be allocated to blitzed cities from the 1st January to 31st December inclusive. A rigid system of planning is not of much use when it comes to the question of reconstructing these blitzed cities. We must have a more flexible plan.

Mr. S. S. Awbery: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us how he determines the amount of steel for blitzed cities? Does he take into consideration the amount of damage done and allocate a quantity of steel according to the damage, or does he allocate the same amount to all the blitzed cities? The amount in Bristol has been reduced from 135 to 100 tons.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman makes a great mistake by comparing the allocation in one period with that in another period. If one has a building project which is to take 12 months to complete it may be that one requires all the steel in the first and second periods and nothing in the third and fourth periods.
If the hon. Gentleman's city requires so much steel in the first six months and nothing in the second six months, how can he come to the House and complain that in the third period he had got nothing? The point is that he does not need anything. He must take into account the technical requirements of steel in a particular building project. It depends on what is to be built in a particular city.
If we had allocated the steel for the third and fourth periods and had raised the hopes of these cities, and then it had been found that the steel could not arrive owing to a strike in America or owing to a shipping shortage, what would hon. Members opposite have said? What would they have said if their entire programme for the blitzed cities had been based on paper allocations which could not be honoured? There would have been many Adjournment debates in the House, and it would have been a most unwise procedure.

Dr. King: rose—

Mr. Marples: I should like to give way, but I have over-run the time and if I do give way I shall not be able to deal with all the points.
Passing to the question of capital investment, we have allocated capital investment to particular areas to match the steel allocated to those areas. If steel suddenly floods into the country—and I do not think it will flood into the country in the quantities expected by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen—we shall revise our capital investment allocations accordingly.
At the moment, however, the restricting factor is not capital investment but steel. As I have said before, I hope that the blitzed cities will plan their forward programme as far ahead as they can, using the minimum quantities of steel, using reinforcing rods and reinforced concrete in place of structural steel, thereby halving the amount of steel for a given building, or using high tensile wire or pre-stressed concrete in place of the heavier steel sections. I hope that the blitzed cities will proceed on those lines.
The real difficulty in the past—and we have to face it—has been that we have had an inflationary period in our economy when more money was created than we had resources to match. Then we introduced the system of licences and the licences were not always given with reference to the resources. What happened in the last six years—and I do not complain or make any criticism—was that we had the money flowing freely, the licences granted reasonably freely, but not the resources.
We have had an overstrained economy and the best thing that we can try to do is to get the money and the resources in more correct perspective. If we can get the steel I give hon. Gentlemen my word that my right hon. Friend and I will fight as hard as we can for a bigger capital allocation, even if it means a big increase in the capital investment programme. We both have our hearts in this; and I am not saying this to fob off hon. Gentlemen. If we can get an increased supply of steel, we shall do our best to see that it is matched in every other way.

COLONIAL RICE PRODUCTION

1.0 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine: The production of rice in the Colonial Empire may be a somewhat unusual subject for an Adjournment debate, but I offer no apology for raising it since it is one of the very greatest importance and, in my submission, of the utmost urgency. Rice is the basic food of a very large part of the world's population and, indeed, the basic food of a very large part of the population of the British Commonwealth.
The economy of South-East Asia, with its vital production of copra, tin and rubber, is influenced very strongly by the availability of rice. If rice is cheap and plentiful, people are contented and all is well. If rice becomes scarce and dear, then famine, misery, social and political upheaval may quickly follow.
Unhappily, rice has become both scarce and dear. I understand that the United States Department of Agriculture has estimated that the world production of rice in the last season was about 168 million short tons. That is a decline of 1 per cent. since the season 1950–51. Even more alarming is the fact that of that 168 million short tons, Asia contributed 155 million short tons—that is, the greater part—and that represents a decline of 1½ per cent. since 1950–51. While production is declining, world demand for this basic commodity is increasing. That is partly due to the fact that, particularly in Asia, populations are increasing all the time; but it is also due to the fact that the high prices which Asian exports have been commanding in the last few years have led to an increase in purchasing power.
Against that background, it is hardly surprising that the price of rice has rocketed. The official contract rate for Siamese rice, to take one variety alone, is £45 a ton f.o.b., which compares with a pre-war price of from £7 to £8 a ton. That is the contract price. But the price which many countries are being obliged to pay—for there is a free market—is considerably higher. Thus, Burmese rice is fetching £59 to £60 a ton f.o.b. in the free market. So great is the demand for rice now that very often it is impossible for countries like Siam to meet even their contractual obligations.
All this is very disturbing indeed for those of us who are interested in the prosperity, happiness and security of our own Commonwealth countries in South-East Asia. There are four of them—Malaya, Sarawak, North Borneo and Hong Kong. All are substantial importers of rice, and all are in the front line in the cold war. With all the seriousness I can command, I say that there is no part of the world more imperilled by the present scarcity and dearness of rice than these Commonwealth territories. Rice is still rationed in Malaya, six years after liberation from the Japanese.
Although production has increased in recent years, Malaya is still obliged to import 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. of her requirements. My information is that the immediate import needs of the four territories are running at a rate of 700,000 tons a year and yet, so rapidly is the population growing, even this amount will be insufficient within a period of five years.
What is even more disturbing is the fact that the only sources of supply for our four territories are the traditional rice-exporting countries of South-East Asia—Burma, Indo-China, and Siam. The first two are racked with civil strife. All are menaced by the onward march of Communism. Before the war, Burma exported about three million tons of rice a year. Today, she is exporting barely one million tons. Indo-China tells the same story. Across the rich rice lands of that unhappy country armies are now locked in bloody conflict.
Siam, I am glad to say, is getting back to her pre-war level of exports but even from this source we are not getting the rice we need. Last year we did not get what Siam contracted to supply. This year we asked for 475,000 tons and we have got only 295,000 tons.
One reason for that is the fact that Japan, who, before the war, drew the bulk of her rice from her dependencies of Korea and Formosa, is today obliged to make demands on sources of rice which normally would be available to supply British territories. She is taking about half a million tons of rice from those sources. That is a new factor, and it is alarming. Since Japan can supply an increasing volume of consumer goods

and, indeed, capital goods to the rice-exporting countries and can deliver them on time, she is bound to make a permanent and increasing demand upon sources of rice which in the past have been available to British territories.
There are no alternative supplies of rice in the world. If an unfavourable turn took place in the political situation in Siam or in Burma; if the Viet-Nam regime were overthrown in Indo-China; if large-scale famine took place in India; if droughts or floods occurred in the rice-producing countries; if any one of these things, or a combination of them, occurred, our territories in South-East Asia could be cut off from their vital rice supplies overnight.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: My hon. Friend has painted a rather gloomy and frightening picture of the consequences which flow from the shortage of rice—social upheaval, famine, and so on. He says that there are no alternative supplies of rice. Could he say, from his investigation, whether there is any possibility of encouraging these people to have an alternative type of food to rice if they cannot get rice?

Mr. Braine: I am grateful for that intervention. For a short time, at the end of the war, I was Deputy Director of Civil Affairs in South-East Asia and I know from experience the extraordinary difficulty we had in persuading rice eaters to turn to some alternative form of food. The extraordinary thing is that both maize and wheat are richer in iron, calcium, fats and proteins than rice. This refusal of the rice-eater to turn to other types of food to even varieties of rice. One cannot easily persuade the traditional rice eater, whose normal sources of supplies are cut off, to turn to another variety if he has never eaten it before. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem. But, how alarming it would be if, as a result of an acute shortage of rice, an increasing demand had to be made upon other cereals. Think of the effect of that upon the rest of the world.
I submit, therefore, that it is a matter of the highest priority to develop alternative sources of supplies of rice in a dependable part of the Commonwealth remote from the storm centres of the world. My object in raising this matter is to ask with what degree of urgency Her


Majesty's Government view this problem. What steps are being taken in the Colonies, for example, an area for which we are responsible, to increase rice production on a substantial scale? What sort of priority is being accorded to rice growing schemes? In particular, may I inquire what is happening in British Guiana?
Both my right hon. Friend, I believe, and myself, visited that promising country last year. I was enormously impressed by the Government-sponsored rice scheme at Mahaicony-Abari, about which I think my right hon. Friend knows a great deal—a scheme for the mechanised cultivation of rice. It is the largest of its kind in the Colonial Empire and a model for the rest of the world. Nowhere in the world are conditions more suitable for large-scale rice growing than in British Guiana, where there are vast areas of irrigable land, highly suitable for rice growing, and an industrious peasant population, highly skilled in the very difficult technique of rice farming. Present production is about 60,000 tons and about half is exported to other West Indian territories. All experts are agreed that that could be greatly expanded if the headwaters of the rivers could be controlled.
The Evans Commission expressed the view in 1948 that some expansion could take place then, and that there should be an investigation into the wider possibilities by an expert commission. I quote from their Report, which says:
It is our considered opinion that the time is ripe for a major decision of policy with regard to the future development and organisation of the rice industry.
That document suggested, if I remember aright, that there should be set up a rice development organisation based on the Mahaicony-Abari scheme. In the Commission's recommendations, it is interesting to note, that of the capital expenditure over a 10-year period, rice development was allotted the most substantial share of the suggested outlay.
Following that the Beachell-Brown mission went out to British Guiana. That was an E.C.A. mission of United States rice experts who undertook a very careful investigation of the situation on the spot, and came to the conclusion that a greater acreage under rice was possible—that it could be expanded from

77,000 acres to 368,000 acres—with a paddy-livestock rotation but only if the headwaters of the rivers could be controlled.
There is not the slightest doubt that very substantial expansion could be carried out. When I was in British Guiana last year I was told it was feasible to expand rice production within five, seven, 10 years at least five-fold—probably more; and on a five-fold basis that would mean 300,000 tons of rice, which would make a very substantial contribution to Commonwealth supplies.
Of course, the limiting factor is finance, as it is in so many of development schemes. I know that a substantial sum of about £750,000, was advanced up to the end of last year under the colonial development and welfare legislation to enable a start to be made on preliminary works.

Mr. Julian Snow: Would the hon. Gentleman permit me to intervene? I wish to get his argument quite clear. Is he proposing this increased production of rice for consumption in European countries, or—if I may so call them—the non-traditional rice consuming countries, or for the benefit of the traditional rice consuming countries, such as those in the Far East, which may be faced with social and political upsets?

Mr. Braine: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I should have thought that he would have gathered already from my earlier remarks that my object is to encourage the production of rice within the Commonwealth so that safe, secure alternative supplies can be made available for the rice eating countries of the British Commonwealth. Indeed, I would go further. I should prefer that as long as our brothers in the Commonwealth on the other side of the world were in danger of starvation not a single ounce of rice should be consumed in this country.

Mr. Snow: Hear, hear.

Mr. Braine: I know, too, that very important plans for increasing rice production were under discussion with the Colonial Development Corporation throughout 1951, and that the Corporation sent a mission to British Guiana to investigate the possibilities. What has happened to the negotiations which opened last year between the British


Guiana Government and the Corporation? My information is that they are hanging fire, and that the Colonial Development Corporation is prepared to go into partnership with the British Guiana Government only in quite limited operations, and is looking for what could be described as unreasonably large returns on its outlay.
I do not want to suggest for a moment that it is wrong for the Corporation to display caution, especially after the experience it has had in other fields. Nor would I suggest that it is wrong that the Corporation should insist upon the local government's taking some part in the venture, because investment by the local colonial government is surely a good thing. It ensures that the project is carefully considered by those on the spot who are in the best position to know whether it is worth while or not. It ensures that the local politicians and the local legislature take a close interest in the matter right from the start.
But there is growing evidence to suggest that the Colonial Development Corporation is preferring to enter into competition with established private enterprise in the commercial field rather than to invest in long-term development. Surely the primary object of the Colonial Development Corporation should be long-term investment in key projects, especially in the production of food and raw materials. Certainly, that was the function ascribed to it in the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, of which Section 1 (1) laid down that the Corporation is
… charged with the duty of securing the investigation, formulation and carrying out of projects for developing resources of colonial territories with a view to the expansion of … foodstuffs and raw materials. …
What single foodstuff in the wide world is of greater importance at present than rice? What project is more worthy of development in British Guiana than rice production? Having regard to the position which I described in the opening of my speech, and the dire need to speed the development of alternative sources of rice, somebody really must question whether the C.D.C. is fulfilling its proper task, and whether a greater degree of urgency should not be employed in this particular matter.
Let me ask about other Colonies. Can my right hon. Friend say whether this

matter is being tackled energetically in other parts of the Commonwealth and Empire, and with an eye to the broad picture? I realise straight away—and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will remind me of it if I do not say it now—that there are very real difficulties in the way of rapid agricultural expansion anywhere in the world—of rice or of anything else. It is not only a question of funds. There is a lack of the right kind of specialists and of water and drainage engineers. In Jamaica, which both my right hon. Friend and I visited last year, there are large areas of land very suitable for rice development. Yet the problem there is not so much a lack of funds, but rather a lack of rice agronomists to advise on the peculiar problems of growing rice in that Colony.
I understand that the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has been asked to provide an expert, and that one has been appointed, but it seems extraordinary to me that we are so short-handed in this matter. There is in the West Indies a remarkable organisation, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, which has done such wonderful work for agriculture not only for the Colonial Empire but throughout the tropical world. Is that splendid organisation doing anything to fill this particular gap?
I realise, too, that it is, perhaps, far too early to lay too much stress on the new schemes for the mechanised cultivation of rice. One agricultural officer I spoke to in the West Indies said that it was by no means certain that rice cultivated by mechanical means gave a greater yield than that cultivated by ordinary hand planting by the peasants. That may be a difficulty which can be overcome in the future, but I do not think that it really matters, because primarily—and I am sure that the House will be with me here—the need in the Colonies—this is another consideration than the one I have been raising so far—the primary need is to encourage more and more diversified peasant cultivation.
Admittedly, there are difficulties, but I submit to my right hon. Friend and to the House that, compared with the disaster which could overwhelm our own territories, especially in Asia, if a rice famine did take place, the difficulties are small indeed. "Where there's a will there's


a way." My object in raising this matter today is to discover whether the will exists in the Colonial Office as well as the Colonies themselves to conquer these difficulties and to ensure that secure and abundant supplies of this vital food will be available to the teeming millions who dwell in the British Commonwealth.

1.20 p.m.

Mr. Julian Snow: The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) for bringing this matter forward today. No doubt he will agree with me that at General Elections, for instance, it is incredibly difficult for candidates of any party which have an interest in colonial matters to make the electorate understand that when they vote they are, in fact, voting for candidates who, if elected to Parliament, have a responsibility not merely to English people but to the millions of inhabitants within the British Commonwealth and within the Colonies. I do not think that any potential Member of Parliament can talk too much about the responsibility which we have for the safeguarding of people who do not have their own national legislatures.
I would like to relate my remarks to the responsibility which is vested in the United Nations in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, who will reply, may conceivably say that he only has a limited responsibility so far as the United Nations are concerned, and he would be quite right. Nevertheless, in this, as in other matters, I think that as we are a member of the United Nations this is a suitable occasion for this House to express its view, or for its Members to express their views, so that our policy and, ultimately, the policy of the United Nations may be affected and to some extent controlled.
In this connection, I speak as an unrepentant believer in the inevitability of a world authority. In this House there are over 50 Members of all parties who belong to the Parliamentary World Government Group, whose primary consideration is making some sort of authority possible which will implement the policies we all know to be desirable, but with which existing political machinery to some extent appears to be ineffective in dealing.
The hon. Member for Billericay mentioned the question of finding alternative sources of supply. I should like to dwell on improving and increasing the efficiency of existing sources of supply, and I must say at the outset that I fully agreed with him when he said that in his view there should be a virtual embargo on the consumption of rice in traditional non-rice-eating countries while there is a global shortage of this commodity. That was a courageous thing for him to say, because there is a certain amount of political capital to be made out of that in this country and, therefore, at the outset, I will associate myself with that statement.

Mr. Braine: There will be a number of small boys who will be quite enthusiastic about it.

Mr. Snow: That is a question of opinion.
We must really get these facts clear in our minds. The hon. Gentleman mentioned figures about production. I have slightly more up-to-date figures on global production of rice than the ones which he quoted. I am given to understand that according to the United Nations News Sheet, issued today, the production of rice in 1950–51 in Asia and the Far East amounted to an estimate of 130 million tons produced on an area of 83 hectares. The significance of that fact is this: That that area of 83 hectares was an increase of 8 per cent. over the prewar area. From that, one draws the inevitable conclusion that we are producing something like the pre-war production of rice on an increased area. In other words, there is something, and we suspect that it is fertility, which is at the bottom of these very interesting figures.
On the question of fertility, perhaps the House will bear with me if I draw a comparison between the fertility of rice production in India, Japan and China. There are two rices which are chiefly concerned in this matter. The one rice, known as japonica, grows in Japan, and depends on rather longer daylight hours and a cooler climate than the other rice involved, which is indica, which is grown chiefly in India. I claim no specialised knowledge of this matter and I am gleaning my facts from the United Nations News Sheet of today's date.
At Cuttack, Orissa, in India, there is a research station, sponsored by the United Nations, the membership of which includes India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, Indo-China, Thailand, Malaya and the Philippines. They are engaged in this fertility problem and in the question of fertilising and pest control. In Japan the production of japonica rice averages 2,352 lb. per acre. The China fertility rate is something like half that, but India, using indica rice, produces about one-third of the Japanese production, that is, about 775 lb. per acre.
The chief function of the Cuttack Research Station is to try to hybridise the two rices in order to improve the fertility rate in India. I should like to put to the Minister this question: Does he think that this particular research station, which is sponsored by the United Nations, is technically operated as well as it might be if other nations, such as ours and America, participated more closely in its activities; and is there any reason to believe that additional funds are needed? One of the other problems which this research station is studying is the fertilising of the land and they are, not unnaturally, investigating potential sources of supply of organic leguminous fertilisers.
The second question which I would like to put to the Minister—and I realise that he cannot be expected to answer these questions straight away, but he might look into them—is: Is the question of inorganic fertilisers receiving the attention of his Department? The Geological Survey of India may possibly provide his Department with information on this subject which may be of global interest. I have not sufficient belief in the existing organisations of the United Nations to believe that there is, as yet, sufficient interchange of technical information on such matters. As the House knows, the Charter of the United Nations comes up for review in 1955, under Article 109, and I believe that this House must, in the course of the next year, give consideration to what reforms are necessary to make the United Nations a more efficient organisation.
Lastly, there is the question of land reform. At its 12th January meeting the United Nations Assembly passed a Resolution, No. 7, on the subject of land reform to increase the production of

basic crops. Since the United Kingdom was one of the sponsors of the Resolution, I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the Colonial Secretary's Written Answer to a Question recently asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, South (Mr. W. T. Williams). The Minister was asked what was being done to implement the Resolution, which called for a policy of land reform. In his reply, which I thought was not unexpected but was somewhat disappointing, the Minister seemed to indicate that the Resolution and its implications were to be the subject of a circular to various colonial Administrations.
Although the right hon. Gentleman has no responsibility on my next point, I should like to know whether the Ministry for Commonwealth Relations has been consulted on this matter, since there appears to be a dual responsibility here. I hope that in his reply the Minister can indicate that the somewhat permissive implication of the Colonial Secretary's reply to that Question will be reconsidered.
The problem of the inherent dangers which have been so very ably deployed by the hon. Member for Billericay seem to me to justify a much more energetic attitude towards this matter, and since we sponsored the resolution of the United Nations Assembly we ought to give a lead in making this not so much a permissive but a much more urgent question for colonial Administrations and for the consideration of other Members of the Commonwealth.
The House would be most misguided if it did not treat this question as of the greatest urgency. The political problems which are developing in the Far East have their basis in the low standard of living of the peoples there, and until we realise that and do something a little more energetic than has been the case during the last 30 years we are in for increased trouble in that part of the world.

1.33 p.m.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): I am sure that the whole House is very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) for having raised this subject today. I am personally very grateful to him for having, with Mr. Speaker's agreement, postponed the discussion from what would have been four


or five o'clock one morning last week until this more sensible hour today.
This is a matter of the very greatest importance, and he would be a foolish Member either of the Government or of Parliament who attempted to minimise the gravity of the situation. It is, as everybody knows, a world-wide problem, and the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) rightly drew attention to certain international aspects of it.
He kindly said that he would not expect me to give a detailed answer to one or two of the points that he raised, but I can assure him that I shall take them up and communicate with him soon. In particular, I will consult my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in regard to Resolution No. 7 of the United Nations Assembly, to which he referred, and I will also see that the attention of the proper authority is drawn to his comments about the research station in Orissa.
I can assure him that the Colonial Office is fully alive to the importance of the question of inorganic fertilisers, but the words that he has uttered today will be a further stimulus to us to have another look at that most important aspect of the whole problem. As he knows, we are playing our full part in the working out of the Colombo Plan, and, indeed, in that wider plan the development plans for the British Far Eastern possessions are now incorporated.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth upon having got a notice fresh from the Press today. I must confess that even under the present Administraton Government Departments do not work so fast that I have a document which was issued only this morning by the United Nations, but I will take steps at an early date to remedy that deficiency. Meanwhile, I congratulate him on the public relations service that he has himself established.
It is our estimate that world supplies of rice this year are likely to fall short of demand by some 500,000 tons, and the degree of deficit is considerably higher than this in the British territories and the free countries of South and South-East Asia. This year the total colonial import requirements in South-East Asia are likely to be some 700,000 tons, and, in addition, Mauritius, Seychelles and Aden

have asked for some 61,800 tons. So the total import needs in South-East Asia and these three territories are not far short of 770,000 tons.
We have made certain Government-to Government arrangements. I share the view of the hon. Member that very much turns on internal tranquillity in the supplying territories. It is hoped that Siam will be able to supply 300,000 tons, Burma some 19,500 tons, and Indo-China, despite the appalling internal difficulties that she is facing, some 50,000 tons, making a total from those three countries, by Government contract, of 369,000 tons. That still leaves a substantial amount which has to be found somewhere. A certain amount may come from ordinary private contracts, some may come from further talks which the Governments hope to have with Siam and Burma, and some will, we hope, come from the stepping-up of internal production.
As hon. Members know, there were many large exporters of rice in pre-war years, and in South and South-East Asia the exports used to total something like eight million tons a year. This year the exporting nations are unlikely to send more than 2,500,000 tons to those who need it, and, as I have said, our imperial needs in the East and Far East are some 770,000 tons.
It is one of the strange facts of history that, despite the devastating wars of this century, populations everywhere are increasing. It is estimated that since the war the population in the East has grown by 100 million and that it is rising annually at the rate of 12 million. So we certainly need every grain of rice that we can find. All British colonial expansion is now being taken up and absorbed locally, except for British Guiana. In a moment I will give some more details about the point raised by my hon. Friend in relation to British Guiana.
The production of the British Colonial Empire is steadily increasing, but it is not increasing anything like enough to take up the local increase in population and the needs of the other importing territories. Production has increased from 1937 to 1950 from about 715,000 tons to about 1 million tons, but this is not enough. I can assure my hon. Friend and the hon. Member opposite that there is no complacency about this and that we


recognise that this has a very high priority need indeed.
Most of the increase in production has come from peasant cultivation, and, though I believe that much of the future supply will depend upon peasant cultivation with the aid that the Government can give to the peasants by means of fertilisers, loans and example, we also have substantial hopes from certain mechanised projects to which I will make a very brief reference.
It might perhaps be for the convenience of the House if I run very briefly over the main colonial territories for which our Department has Parliamentary and other responsibility. In Malaya, the production before the war was some 330,000 tons. In the season 1950–51 the production was 440,000 tons, an increase of 110,000 tons since before the war. That increase has been achieved despite the devastation of war and the terrorism under which Malaya has lived since the war.
Though I would not suggest that that is an adequate increase, I think it is a striking increase considering the difficulties, with which Malaya is confronted. It is hoped that by 1955 Malayan production will have increased again up to 535,000 tons, and we will give every encouragement and worth-while assistance to step up production. But the population is growing and this rapid increase in the local population is taking up naturally the increase in production.
In North Borneo production is very much improved indeed, and I think credit is due to the Government and people of North Borneo for the way in which they have rescued the economy of their territory from the terrible disasters that fell upon that area during the war. It is now estimated that in a good year North Borneo ought to be able to feed with rice four out of every five of her own population. In Sarawak production is also improving. The C.D.C. have made experiments in North Borneo at Marudu Bay, the desults of which have been very disappointing; they have not justified the hope which we had of their success.
In East Africa there are a number of more hopeful schemes, and this is an area to which we can look with some sober confidence. In Tanganyika there are at work some pilot schemes of partially mechanised rice production and

fully mechanised rice production. If I may take two examples of each it might be of interest to the House. There is the Rufiji form of partially mechanised cultivation and, there, some 3,400 acres were ploughed in 1950 and, in 1951, 4,000. The yield is very satisfactory. It is, I believe, a ton an acre of milled rice and it is hoped that in time some 25,000 acres can be cultivated in that district alone.
In regard to the fully mechanised experiments, there is one which I was not able to see when I was lately in Tanganyika and that is the Kilangali fully mechanised experiment which is some 200 miles west of Dar-es-Salaam. This is a scheme of some 4,000 acres fully mechanised and, so far, 800 acres have been covered. In view of disillusionment with large-scale mechanical schemes in Tanganyika and the heavy loss sustained, no one will blame the local Government or any other projector in going slowly and experimenting step by step. We have every reason to believe that both in partial and in the fully mechanised ventures successful results will be achieved.
Kilangali is on the way to another area where there is strong hope that substantial cultivation may be possible and that is the Ruvu and Kilombero areas of Tanganyika, where some people believe, though not without some authority for doing so, that there are some 200,000 acres of potential rice land available. We shall push on the projects with the greatest possible vigour. The Governor of Tanganyika and his Council realise the importance of this and it is a venture which will be given their closest personal attention.
In Northern Rhodesia we hope for small exports from the land available, and in Nyasaland the Colonial Development Corporation have done experiments on partially mechanised cultivation. These are coming in for a great deal of difficulty especially in the matters of irrigation and the problem of water control schemes. One project which we think might be hopeful is in the Limpasa Dambo district. Mechanical cultivation of rice in the swamp district has been found to be uneconomical in comparison with peasant cultivation. In the Lake Chilwa area they are running into one or two early problems, but they are pushing


on with both ventures unless and until they have to confess failure in that particular field.
In West Africa there is the same sort of problem. The area is not yet fully self-sufficient but production has increased since before the war by some 30 per cent. There is a good deal of hope from research and development work going on in Northern Rhodesia and in the Gambia. We have heard about the swamp areas around the main rivers, and in the Wallikunda swamp some 4,000 acres of rice may be grown. There have been great difficulties there because of the great floods in Gambia in 1950. Hon. Members will also know of the most romantic and important Volta River hydroelectric scheme in the Gold Coast, a project which may well be a fruitful field of rice cultivation in the future.
It is in the West Indies that our hopes are highest, and particularly in British Guiana. The Caribbean area as a whole is not self-sufficient in the production of rice. In Jamaica and Trinidad schemes are on foot and every encouragement is being given. In Jamaica there are guaranteed prices for all rice of marketable quality, and there is an irrigation scheme covering some 5,000 acres where water will be available by June of this year all over the area, which is about one-fifth of the total area which we have in mind. Every encouragement is being given to the local cultivators.
The best results can be looked for in British Guiana. My hon. Friend said that I had lately visited British Guiana. It was my hope to do so. I was in the West Indies and was proposing to go on, but on the second day that I was in the Barbados I heard over the radio that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had decided to ask His Majesty to dissolve Parliament and that a General Election was impending. I had to return without going to British Guiana.
It is not for me to say whether the lost cause by my failing to arrive has been more than offset by the consequences of the election that followed, particularly in a debate of this kind on the last day the House is sitting before a Recess, but I hope that I shall have an early opportunity of going to British Guiana and seeing something of the schemes which are there being undertaken.
We owe a great deal to the people there for the help they are giving not only in maintaining their own people with their rice demands, but in exporting very considerable quantities to other Carribbean districts. Production in British Guiana has gone up from 45,000 tons before the war to 65,000 tons. They are sending to the Caribbean area some 25,000 tons a year, which is an invaluable aid to the other territories in the West Indies.
They have run into great difficulties about drainage and irrigation, and it is no good minimising the gravity of these difficulties. Further proposals will go before the Legislative Council in British Guiana, and I hope that the House will be interested in these proposals when they are made. Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom have allotted £750,000 of Colonial Development and Welfare money for irrigation schemes. We have assured the Government of British Guiana that we will do our very best to offer facilities for the raising of a loan on the London market when the time is thought desirable for further schemes. The big venture is at Mahaicony-Abari, and there we are learning the lessons of mechanised rice cultivation.
As my hon. Friend told the House, the Colonial Development Corporation has shown considerable interest in the possibility of joining in the growing of rice in British Guiana, and after the Evans Report and the visit of the American technicians, a mission went out from the Colonial Development Corporation to talk to the Governor of British Guiana. I can assure my hon. Friend that his observations will be seen by my noble Friend the Chairman of the Colonial Development Corporation, and that he and we in the Colonial Office will profit by the observations made.
My hon. Friend knows as well as I do the criticism which the Colonial Development Corporation found itself subjected to because of over hasty ventures without the necessary preliminary planning having been done. I do not think we can blame the Corporation if it is going slowly in a matter of this kind. It will have an opportunity of seeing how the difficulties are solved in Mahaicony-Abari and in the other scheme at Anna Regina, and on the way these schemes work the form of conclusion to which the Corporation comes may well turn.
At present talks are going on between the C.D.C. and the Government of British Guiana, and when the time seems right for observations to be made I can assure my hon. Friend they will be made. It is the view of the Government that the C.D.C. as far as possible should attract to its schemes the financial investment of the local Governments as well as any other private money that may be ready to venture in some of their enterprises. I am strongly in favour of the local Government, apart from its natural interest in the development of its country, taking a direct financial responsibility for schemes in their territories wherever possible. This is one aspect of the problem that has not been lost sight of in the present talks.
I can assure both hon. Gentlemen who have taken part in this debate that this is no matter of party politics of the United Kingdom. The speeches made show that we attach the greatest importance to every ventilation of this question. It has been well worth while that the House should give up three quarters of an hour to a matter affecting the lives of millions of people, for a large proportion of whom we in the United Kingdom Parliament have the greatest responsibility.

WIRELESS AND TELEVISION, NORTH-EAST AREA

1.52 p.m.

Mr. R. Ewart: I welcome the opportunity of putting to the Assistant Postmaster-General a point of view on the question of the North-Eastern B.B.C. shared wavelength. I do so because the last few weeks and, indeed, months, his noble Friend the Postmaster-General has, by virtue of the imposition of the closed shop on behalf of the Conservative Members of Parliament and the local authorities in the area, deprived myself and my hon. Friends in the northern group of Labour M.P.s from making representations to him on this subject on behalf of our constituents. Yet the northern group of Labour M.P.s are no mean body. In that group there are 29 right hon. and hon. Members of this House.
The prerogative of the Postmaster-General has been exercised to determine that six Conservative Members of Parliament, three of whom took the opportunity of visiting him with representatives of the

local authorities, should be given the privilege of stating a case and a point of view outside the terms of reference on which local authorities requested their interview.
The local authorities asked for an interview on the matter of television facilities in the North-East. They stated that in correspondence with the Postmaster-General. The Postmaster-General said in effect to Labour Members of Parliament, "If you want to talk about the shared wavelength on the sound broadcast in your area you will have to queue behind the local authority representatives and the two or three Conservative Members of Parliament, and then I will permit you to state your case."
The facts of the situation are that this area, in which there is a population of over two and a half million, has been deprived of its own wavelength since 1945 and has been in the position, equally invidious for its partner, Northern Ireland, of sharing with it a wavelength. There is very little or no community of interest to determine such a policy, and the programme has largely been determined to about 75 per cent. of the content by Northern Ireland.
The hon. Gentleman knows that this vast population in the highly industrialised area to which I am referring, where coal, shipbuilding, chemicals and the principal industries from which this country derives its economic life-blood are to be found, are being refused the type of radio facilities that would give warmth and comfort to them. A miner returned from the mine, a shipyard worker back from the shipyard, sits down to his evening meal, turns on the radio, and listens to fat stock prices from Northern Ireland and to matters affecting Northern Ireland local government. And this seems to be a matter of very little importance to the Postmaster-General.
I want to put one or two questions to the Assistant Postmaster-General. The first is, has the consideration of this matter reached finality? I am led to believe by the decision which was given to the local authorities that the North-East would be first in the list of priorities for television facilities, that there would be a very high frequency station for sound broadcasting at Stagshawe in that area, and that these very high priorities


might be exercised in five, six or seven years' time. The consideration of them is consequent upon the defence programme, and the effect of such a policy being implemented by his Department would have such an effect on the electronics industry of this country that it would take away from the full implementation of the defence programme a vital industry which will play a most important part.
It was for that precise reason that the Northern Labour Members of Parliament said that they agreed with the decision of the previous Postmaster-General on the matter of television facilities, and because of their responsibility in this matter—which has been shown in plain relief to the irresponsible attitude of Conservative Members of Parliament—they said, "We are prepared to stand by this decision given to us by our own Government, we recognise there has been little or no change since that decision was given in July, and we are desirous of asking the Postmaster-General to give special consideration to what might be the alternative for relieving the existing situation of the shared wavelength in the North-East. A very high frequency transmitter is a thing of the remote future."
Has the Postmaster-General exhausted all possibility of relieving and securing a foreign-broadcasts wavelength for the benefit of the North-East? I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to answer that question when he replies to this debate. I am led to believe that there are certain settled wavelengths which are not being utilised to the full in foreign broadcasts and which might be released and secured for the purpose of giving the north-east area its own wavelength.
Why did the Postmaster-General bring down from the North-East representatives of local authorities and waste their time and money in order to give them precisely the same decision as his predecessor, my right hon. Friend, gave to the North-East Members in July last year, a decision which was widely publicised in the area? There is nothing new in the decision of the Postmaster-General.
It was stated by his predecessor that television would receive high priority when the time arrived, that it was not possible to secure a separate wavelength

at that time, and that the question of a very high frequency transmitter was being considered for the north-east area. The local authorities were brought down from the North-East so that the Postmaster-General could give precisely the same decision as was given a matter of eight or nine months ago by his predecessor.
I want now to pass to a matter which we in the Labour Party consider to be of primary importance. That is, the right of Members of Parliament, elected to this House, to make representation on behalf of their constituents to Ministers of the Crown. That right has been denied by the present Postmaster-General. A serious misrepresentation was made by the hon. Gentleman in the House when answering questions on the subject a few days ago.
The facts are these. On 6th December last, the north-eastern area Labour Members of Parliament wrote to the hon. Gentleman's noble Friend saying that we desired a conference with him to discuss the question of the North-East shared wavelength, and nothing else. His noble Friend replied on 24th January offering facilities for us to meet him and to discuss the matter. In his letter of 24th January, he made three suggestions. He said that he was about to meet the local authorities from the North-East and invited us to meet him with them in that area; or we could meet the noble Lord or the Assistant Postmaster-General with the Conservative Members of Parliament; or thirdly, the noble Lord or the hon. Gentleman were prepared to meet us separately to hear our case.
The letter went on to say:
Perhaps you will let me know whether you agree to a joint discussion on the date suggested or whether you would prefer to see me or the Assistant Postmaster-General in London at some other time.
Consequent upon that, I informed the Postmaster-General that my colleagues and I desired to see him separately to discuss the matter. We agreed with that suggestion in a letter dated 5th February, wherein he invited us to meet in a room in another place. That offer was accepted through his secretary over the telephone.
An unfortunate intervention caused the deferment of the proposed meeting. The letter of 5th February said:
Lord De La Warr has asked me to say that, if convenient to you, he could meet you


at 3.30 on Thursday afternoon. He suggests that this might perhaps be a joint meeting with yourselves and the northern Conservative Members. …
We raised no objections to that. That meeting would have been held but for the intervention of his late Majesty's death.
I was asked by the private secretary to the noble Lord if we would agree to defer—not to cancel—the meeting until after Parliament re-assembled, at some unspecified date. That agreement was entered into with the proviso I made over the telephone that the deferred meeting should be held prior to the proposed meeting between the Postmaster-General and the local authorities.
Since that time, the Postmaster-General has refused categorically to meet us and has refused to give us a further date. As we are not in the position of being able to put questions direct to the noble Lord, I ask the hon. Gentleman to give some reason for this change of mind and to say why the Postmaster-General, after arranging a meeting with Members of the House and agreeing through his private secretary that the meeting should be deferred, has refused to give a further date and has consistently said that he would not meet us unless we tagged on to the end of the queue with the local authorities and the Conservative Members of Parliament.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. David Gammans): The hon. Member has read certain letters. Would he care to read the letters addressed to him by my noble Friend on 5th and 11th March?

Mr. Ewart: I am taking this matter in chronological order. I am making my case in my own way, and the correspondence will be revealed as I make my points. I am now only as far as 5th February and the subsequent telephone discussion following that letter.
I received a most interesting letter on 28th February, in reply to a letter of mine, wherein the noble Lord made these points. He said that he was not prepared to meet us separately. He gave no reason why the meeting, which had been deferred, was not now to be held except that he would not now meet us because he had decided to meet the local authorities in London. He said:
I had in mind that we could keep the matter out of the sphere of party politics as

this should not be allowed to become a political issue at all. If I see either yourselves or the Conservative Members separately before the others"—
"the others" being the members of the local authority deputation—
I shall be charged with having favoured one or other side, and this I am not prepared to do either for my own party or for yours.
The noble Lord has more experience of political parties than I have—I have only been in one—and I am quite prepared to concede that point to him. But in this letter, he takes upon himself the right and the responsibility of determining, when Members of the House request an interview to discuss specific constituency matters, who shall accompany them.
Again, we told the noble Lord that this was not acceptable and that we were not prepared to tag on to the end of a deputation who did not want to discuss the shared wavelength and who in their correspondence—I challenge the hon. Gentleman to produce one letter from the local authorities which mentions the shared wavelength—and in the memorandum which accompanied it and which Members of Parliament in the area received referred to the matter of television in the area, and only made reference to the shared wavelength. The noble Lord said, "If you want to discuss your subject you will have to come with the other people and discuss it when they are discussing theirs." That was not acceptable to us.
On 5th March, a further letter was received. This is the letter to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. It is rather illuminating, that the noble Lord, in replying to me, said:
I am going ahead with the meeting with the local authorities and Conservative Members as arranged, and if you wish to talk the matter over"—
talk the matter over—
with the Assistant Postmaster-General or myself, possibly we can arrange a meeting a little later.
What the noble Lord was saying there was, "I intend to pursue my intention of meeting the Conservative Members of Parliament with the local authority representatives, but I say to the 29 Labour Members of Parliament, 'If you like to talk the matter over with me—not have a discussion of policy—then this could be arranged a little later.'" This was after 18th March—and at no other time before—the date on which he had


decided to meet the local authority representatives.
This is a sorry situation. Members of Parliament are told that a Minister of the Crown takes upon himself the right and responsibility to discuss a matter of policy with certain people, the majority of whom are outside bodies. This is not a local authority matter but purely a Parliamentary and Governmental matter. He will discuss it with outside bodies led by Conservative Members and after he has determined the policy with them, and made a final statement on the matter, Labour Members of Parliament can come along at some time in the future—but not before he has carried out this practice—and can talk the matter over, either with him or the Assistant Postmaster-General.
This is a serious situation, and one which we probably should not have exposed had it not been for the specially designed Question placed on the Order Paper by the hon. Member for Tyne-mouth (Miss Ward). It was a written Question to which hon. Members would have no right to put supplementary questions, asking who had been invited to the conference and a further Question asking who had refused to attend.
The noble Lord says, and I would draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to this because it impinges on the statement he made in this House the other day, which was a gross misrepresentation:
As far back as 24th September the local authorities passed a resolution calling upon"—
note that—calling upon—
the Postmaster-General to ask for a television transmitter at Pontop Pike and on the 18th November the Secretary of the Durham County Boroughs Committee wrote to Sir Fergus Graham on the question of the shared wavelength. Sir Fergus Graham wrote to me on the 20th November raising this point.
When the hon. Member for Darlington (Sir F. Graham) wrote to the Postmaster-General on 20th November, he did not ask for an interview with the Postmaster-General either on his own behalf or on behalf of his Conservative colleagues. On the first point in this letter, that the meeting of the local authorities was in September, I now challenge the hon. Gentleman to produce the first letter from the clerk on behalf of those local authorities, the clerk to the Whitley Bay Urban District Council, requesting an interview. It was not in September, it was on 17th January.

Mr. Frederick Willey: Shocking.

Mr. Ewart: And the local authorities met in September, discussed this matter, and appointed a committee to go into the question of making representations to the noble Lord, and arranged a further meeting just prior to 17th January. Their clerk wrote to the noble Lord on 17th January requesting an interview. The hon. Gentleman said in this House, in answer to questions:
The truth is that it was not Members of this House who first asked my noble Friend to meet them; it was members of local authorities as early as last September."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd April, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 1659.]
That is a total misrepresentation of the facts. The local authorities did not ask his noble Friend to meet them in September. They had their meeting in September. They appointed a committee to go into the matter and that committee went into the matter a few days prior to 17th January. And on 17th January of this year his noble Friend received a request for a meeting to discuss television, and television only. It was on 6th December last that I wrote on behalf of right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House representative of the northern group of Labour Members for a meeting—

Mr. Gammans: I think we may save a little time if I clear up the point as to what they wrote about. The document from the local authorities committee says:
The Committee would also like to discuss with the Postmaster-General the arrangements under which the area is subjected to a regional programme which in so far as it is of local origin is almost 100 per cent. Northern Ireland. …

Mr. Willey: What date?

Mr. Gammans: The 24th September.

Mr. Ewart: The document is dated so, but did the Postmaster-General receive that document in September or did he receive it after 17th January?

Mr. Gammans: The hon. Gentleman has contended that what the local authorities wanted to come about was television. That is not so. They realise the two questions were very intimately and inextricably bound up.

Mr. Willey: What was the date of the receipt of the communication? The hon.


Gentleman has already conveyed the impression that it was received on 24th September.

Mr. Gammans: What I said to the House was that that is a copy of the minutes of a meeting held in September.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Gentleman did not say so.

Mr. Ewart: This document referred to a statement of a meeting held in the Whitley Bay Urban District Council offices on 24th September, 1951, at which a number of councils were represented. A deputation was appointed and the committee made observations in support of their case. They go on to deal in four paragraphs with the question of television, and their case for the erection of a low-power transmitter at Pontop Pike. There is a very slight reference to the other matter. But if I concede that point to him now, will the Assistant Postmaster-General state the date on which he received the document with the request from the local authorities that they should be met? I am prepared to sit down now and await his answer.

Mr. Gammans: I cannot say whether this document was received in September or not, because I was not in office at that time. But there is no doubt about two things; that the local authorities wished to see the Postmaster-General and that they appointed a committee for the purpose of waiting upon the Postmaster-General to discuss these two subjects.

Mr. Ewart: As the hon. Gentleman appears to be so badly briefed, or is avoiding the point, perhaps he will permit me to give him the answer.

Mr. E. Shinwell: Does the hon. Gentleman really say he is unable to answer for what transpired immediately before he assumed office? Does he mean to say he could not have ascertained from his staff what actually transpired? This is not a matter of high policy, it is merely a factual question which could easily have been answered if he had queried his staff about it. Is this his alibi, that he was not in office at the time?

Mr. Gammans: No, that is not an alibi. Of course it is not. I think that

we had better let the hon. Gentleman continue his speech.

Mr. Shinwell: If my hon. Friend will permit me, I would say that it is bad enough to have a snooty aristocrat in another place treating Labour Members in this fashion, but let me tell the hon. Gentleman that we will not allow him to indulge in such tactics here.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: On a point of order. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman, or for any other hon. Member of this House, to refer to a member of another place as a snooty aristocrat?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I did not understand the right hon. Gentleman to make that reference at all.

Mr. Shinwell: I will explain what I meant, if my hon. Friend will permit me. When the Postmaster-General sits in another place, and we cannot get at him because he is in another place, one has to rely on the Assistant Postmaster-General, who probably is not to blame at all in this regard—

Major Legge-Bourke: Further to that point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has now confirmed that he was referring to the Postmaster-General when he made that remark.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understood that the reference was to the answer. The adjective was applied to the answer.

Mr. Shinwell: I am explaining why he was snooty. There is no doubt about him being an aristocrat. That is obvious. I say that he was snooty because he treated Members of Parliament, whether they are on one side of the House or the other, in this most obscene fashion, and we will not put up with it. I want to make that quite clear.

Miss Irene Ward: On a point of order. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman to use the word "obscene"?

Mr. Frederick Peart: Of course it is.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not know that it is un-Parliamentary.

Mr. Shinwell: I am surprised at the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) raising a most unseemly


point of order of that kind. With the consent of my hon. Friend, I pursue my point. Does the hon. Gentleman really make this his alibi? I have been a Member of Governments, as he knows, and I should never dare to come to this House and treat hon. Members in this fashion.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am not sure now whether the right hon. Gentleman is not making a speech. I would remind him that his hon. Friend is in possession of the House.

Mr. Shinwell: I am within the Ruling of the Chair, but I understood that my hon. Friend gave way so that I could put the point to the Assistant Postmaster-General. I am content with having put the point. No doubt the Assistant Postmaster-General will try to make a speedy escape from the alibi and admit that he could have obtained the information if he had asked for it.

Mr. Ewart: The position we have arrived at is that the hon. Gentleman has produced a document. He has implied to the House that the date of 24th September on that document was the date on which he received it in his Department. That is not true. The hon. Gentleman is in possession of the facts. If I give him the information and quote from a letter which I received from his noble Friend, perhaps he will then admit that he is wrong and withdraw the reference he made at Question time the other day.
I have here a letter received by myself from the Postmaster-General on 24th January. Accompanying that letter of 24th January was a letter which the Postmaster-General wrote to Mr. Ruddock, the Clerk of the Whitley Bay Urban District Council.
In the opening paragraph his noble Friend says to the Clerk of the Council:
You wrote on 17th January asking me to receive a deputation from local authorities in the North-East to talk about the question of a low-power television transmitter at Pontop Pike, County Durham.
By the same post I received a letter from Mr. Ruddock telling me that he also had written to the Postmaster-General asking for an interview. That letter was also dated 17th January.

Mr. Peart: Oh.

Mr. Ewart: I ask in the interests of Parliamentary decorum and decency, if the hon. Gentleman is equal to such a

courtesy, that the Assistant Postmaster-General should withdraw the statement he made in the House on 2nd April, when he said:
The truth is that it was not Members of this House who first asked my noble Friend to meet them; it was members of local authorities, as early as last September."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd April, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 1659.]
Today the hon. Gentleman says that he does not know when the document was received; he has not got the information; he is only assuming that it was received on 24th September. I have given him the information from correspondence received from the Postmaster-General. Now, perhaps, he will have the decency to withdraw the statement.
I conclude by saying that the situation which I have endeavoured to put before the House has been brought about largely through the policy of the Prime Minister of appointing to high Ministerial office members of another place. They are not subject to questioning in this House. Either they are totally ignorant of the rights of Members or Parliament or they are entirely indifferent to them.

Mr. Peart: Both.

Mr. Ewart: The noble Lord can sit in splendid isolation in another place and consider himself to be safeguarded against demands that he should explain his conduct. But I want to say this about the Prime Minister. At least he pays lip-service to Parliamentary rights and to the high virtues of our Parliamentary democracy. He safeguards at all times the rights of Members in this House.
I suggest that, after the experience that we have had with one Minister of this kind who sits in another place, the Prime Minister should sack the noble Lord and, in view of the gross and deliberate misrepresentation of the hon. Gentleman at Question time on 2nd April, he should see that the Assistant Postmaster-General goes with him.

2.28 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: Being an Irishman, and consequently of a peaceful disposition, I have no wish to become embroiled in certain aspects of this controversy, especially with the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell).

Mr. Shinwell: I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will become embroiled with me.

Captain Orr: Perhaps I will later.

Mr. Shinwell: The sooner the better.

Captain Orr: The fact that there is controversy and that there are hard feelings shows that this shared wavelength gives rise to a lot of troubles and difficulties. If we can find some solution, so much the better. We do not like it in Northern Ireland any more than do our friends in the North-East of England. We think that they in the North-East can get a good deal of educational value from the programmes from Northern Ireland. No doubt the Northern Ireland news kept them up to date with the affairs of a very important part of the Kingdom, and I am sure that the doings of the Durham County Council are a model for all local authorities.

Mr. Peart: The Socialists increased their majority.

Captain Orr: This shared wavelength causes many difficulties. If we can provide an alternative, so much the better. There are various ways in which we could get a solution.
First of all, as has been suggested, we could perhaps get another wavelength, and I hope that my hon. Friend has not entirely closed his mind to that, because there is a possibility of piracy. I know that he is a model of rectitude and would not entertain that for a moment, but, behind the Iron Curtain, there are wavelengths which might quite easily be used, and I am sure that we do not blush to advocate that. There is one at Athlone in the Republic of Ireland, but perhaps that may be a little too near home.
The second way of doing it is by way of V.H.F., in which direction the Postmaster-General has said it is his intention to solve the problem, but there are, of course, the limitations of the re-armament programme, and it would be some time before we might be in a position to do that. If I might suggest another solution, which I have already suggested at Question time and also in a memorandum to my hon. Friend, it is that he should put the two transmitters in the North of England on the one wavelength.
Certain of the B.B.C. technicians have dismissed that as impossible, but their

view is by no means unanimous within the B.B.C. itself, and I agree that if we did that we might incur the difficulty of having a "mush" area over part of the region, and some people might suffer worse reception as a consequence. I think the difficulties of that are exaggerated, and that it may not be as bad as it sounds. At any rate, we should satisfy a far greater number of listeners than are satisfied at the present time.

Mr. Peart: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggesting that Northern Ireland and the North-East of England should be linked together to the detriment of my own county?

Captain Orr: No, what I was suggesting was that the aggregate of listeners in Northern Ireland and the North-East Coast—and this is the essence of democracy—might be satisfied to a greater extent, though, in the region referred to by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), we might dissatisfy a few people, while satisfying far more elsewhere. I suggest that the advantages would outweigh any disadvantages.
At any rate, why should we not try it for six months, and, at the end of that time, by listener research or some other methods, then find out whether we have satisfied the people and whether this "mush" area is as bad as it sounds. Then, we might inquire whether the B.B.C. technicians could not, by a little ingenuity in these areas, mitigate the evils that may arise there. I suggest we might try that as an experiment for six months, and that we might find that perhaps both of these areas could get along quite well.

Mr. Speaker: May I point out to the House that we are running a little late? Although I have some time in hand, I would ask succeeding speakers to be as brief as they possibly can.

2.34 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I readily comply with that invitation, as I think that my hon. Friend has put a very comprehensive case, and that his indictment certainly demands a reply from the Assistant Postmaster-General.
I think it would be very disturbing to the local authorities when they read HANSARD and see how badly northern


Members of Parliament have been treated. This is an entirely new Parliamentary doctrine to say to a group of Members that a Minister is quite willing to see them, provided that they come along with somebody else and discuss something entirely different. If we were to press that still further, it would make nonsense of what has always been understood to be the right of access of Members of Parliament to Ministers of the Crown.
This is a very serious matter, which calls for a serious reply. Having heard the correspondence revealed by my hon. Friend today, I think the hon. Gentleman appears to have misled the House, and that again is a serious matter. I share the impression of my hon. Friend that, when the Assistant Postmaster-General gave his reply at Question time, he created the impression that an invitation had been received from the local authorities—a different group to the Durham County Boroughs group—and that he received those representations in September. It is clear from the correspondence quoted by my hon. Friend that this is not so.
On the broad issue, I realise that this matter concerns not only the present Assistant Postmaster-General but his predecessors, but I would emphasise again that the North-East Coast rightly feels that it has been neglected about many things, that its claims have been too frequently overlooked. I concede that on this particular matter the Conservative group of hon. Members had reached a similar conclusion.
Here we have a part of Britain upon which very heavy demands are being made and appeals are being made to coal miners and other workers to work harder in the heavy industries. These people want some compensation, and do not want to feel that they are being overlooked and that they have to put up both with a shared wavelength and to enjoy no television facilities.
I feel that, when we discussed this matter with the Minister's predecessor, we really had a good case in regard to television. I appreciate that this is a matter of balance, but it is arguable that the heavy capital cost went into the coaxial cables and that the cost of the transmitters was not so great, as the hon.

Gentleman has conceded. It is a dangerous argument to say that television must not be given to miners and other heavy workers in an industrial area. I know the difficulties of a shared wavelength, and they have been explained to me by the previous Postmaster-General as well as by the hon. Gentleman, but I think we should really try to do something about it when at present we are suffering from both of these disadvantages.

2.37 p.m.

Miss Irene Ward: Some time ago I asked my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General if he could tell me when the pledge given to restore our wavelength, which was taken from us during the war, would be implemented, and he said that he could find no trace of that pledge. If I may say so with very great respect, I think he must have been in error in giving such a quick answer, and I have been at some pains to look into the matter. I merely want now to place on record confirmation of the facts which I gave to my hon. Friend on that occasion.
I have in my possession a memorandum and a letter from Mr. John Coatman, who was an official of the Northern Region of the B.B.C. during that period, on the whole of the circumstances which arose when our wavelength was taken away. Mr. Coatman wrote to the Governors of the B.B.C. to ask for the implementation of the pledge, in view of the treatment that had been meted out to the North-East Coast. I have Mr. Coatman's permission to make these remarks in the House, and I propose to send to my hon. Friend, in implementation of my statement, the full texts as I have them in my possession, but there are two or three brief points that I want to make.
One is to place on record Mr. Coat-man's appreciation of the situation that we are discussing this afternoon. In a letter to me, Mr. Coatman, who is now Director of Research in the Social Sciences at St. Andrew's University, on 16th February, 1952, said:
The note"—
that is, the memorandum which I propose to send to my hon. Friend—
gives some idea of how I fought Stagshaw's case for years, receiving no help whatsoever from the Labour M.Ps., who toed the party line, or from local bodies. Contrast this with my account of the West of England's case.


No doubt, my hon. Friend will say that when the West of England's case for restoration of their wavelength came up, the very strongest representations were made from the Western Region to the then Lord President of the Council, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Morrison). On these representations from Members of Parliament and members of local bodies, the West of England won the restoration of their wavelength and the North-East coast was the area which was eliminated. I proposed to leave it to my hon. Friend to deal with what I call the local interest. It is a good thing that Conservative Members of Parliament have intervened in this debate because had Labour Members, during the time that their party was in power, made a strong—

Mr. Ewart: rose—

Miss Ward: One moment. The hon. Gentleman may intervene when I have finished.

Mr. Peart: Fishwife.

Miss Ward: I should be proud to be a fishwife.

Mr. Peart: You are.

Commander C. E. M. Donaldson: On a point of order. Is it proper, Mr. Speaker, for the hon. Member opposite to refer to an hon. Member on this side of the House as a fishwife and to repeat that she is?

Mr. Speaker: I did not hear the expression alluded to. I heard the hon. Lady refer to it. If the hon. Member did use the expression, he ought to withdraw it.

Miss Ward: Further to that point of order. I should be grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, if you would kindly not press the hon. Gentleman opposite to withdraw the remark because in the North of England we are very proud of our fishwives. I represent them in this House, and, therefore, I am delighted to be associated with them.

Mr. Ewart: I would like for the purpose of the record—and this can be ascertained from the files of the Post Office—to say also that Labour Members of Parliament have made repeated representations by conference, by speeches and by Questions in this House since 1946 on the matter of the north-eastern area.

Miss Ward: I would not for one moment deprive the hon. Gentleman of that intervention. I think it is a very good thing, but all I can say is that after six years of Labour rule the North-East Coast is still badly served in this respect despite the representations made by hon. Members opposite to their Ministers when they were in power. Preferably, I like to bring things out into the daylight and to have them on record in the House of Commons.
In conclusion, I want to say that I think it is of very great importance that we on the North-East Coast should have adequate facilities for both television and sound broadcasts. If this debate has done anything useful at all, it has certainly directed the attention of the Assistant Postmaster-General to the position, and has also given him an opportunity of answering the allegations made by hon. Members opposite. So far as my hon. Friends and I are concerned, we shall continue to press our own side, and, thank goodness, we in the Conservative Party still have the courage to do it in public.

Mr. Harry Wallace: On a point of order. The hon. Lady says she likes to bring things out into the daylight. I have been very interested this afternoon in the conflict of evidence. The hon. Lady referred to a pledge which, I think, implicates the Assistant Postmaster-General. She did not give the House any information about that pledge, neither the date of it nor what it involves. It seems unfair to make a reflection upon an hon. Member holding the office of Assistant Postmaster-General without giving more details of the alleged pledge. The hon. Lady spoke vaguely about, "The pledge I told the House about; the pledge I gave them no information about, but which I will send to my hon. Friend." Is not the House entitled to a little more respect than that, Mr. Speaker?

Miss Ward: If I may, Mr. Speaker, I should like to be allowed to tie that up. I am very grateful to the hon. Member, who was not present when I addressed the question to my hon. Friend. When our wavelength was taken for war purposes under the Coalition Government, a pledge was given that it would be restored to us at the end of the war. I can quite


understand that there may be an alteration in the circumstances, but I am only pointing out that if the Labour Party had fought as hard for the North-East Coast as the Northern Region Members of all parties fought for their area, we might have had our wavelength restored.

2.46 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. David Gammans): I think it is a pity that we should have had to discuss this most important question of radio and television on the North-East Coast in terms of party warfare, for that is what it has come down to. This is a matter which does not concern parties. At any rate, that is the viewpoint from which we at the Post Office have looked at it. I also think it unfortunate that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Ewart), should think that my noble Friend has been discourteous to him. May I assure him and the House that that is the very last thing my noble Friend or I would wish to do, and I hope I shall succeed in proving to the hon. Gentleman that although there may have been a difference of opinion on both sides about the best way of dealing with this problem, the very last thing that my noble Friend desired was a charge of discourtesy.
I think the trouble has arisen partly owing to a misunderstanding as to what my noble Friend may have had in mind and also the history of it. On one particular point I wish to correct something I said just now. I perhaps gave the impression that these representations from the local authorities came to the Post Office in September. That was not so. Their meeting was held in September, but, so far as I can trace, the first representation we received from them enclosing a copy of their minutes was in November.

Mr. Ewart: This is rather important if we want to get the facts right. When that communication was received in November—and I have no reason to doubt the hon. Gentleman's word—was there an accompanying letter asking for an interview with the hon. Gentleman's noble Friend, because the statement made by the hon. Gentleman at Question time last week was to the effect that the local authorities asked for a meeting as far back as September. Was there not a request for a meeting in the document received in November?

Mr. Gammans: The document itself asked for a meeting. That is how, I think, the misunderstanding in the mind of the hon. Gentleman may have arisen. May I make it perfectly clear that the first time that this matter came to the notice of the Post Office was in November. Let us get the chronological order right. The next representations were made by the hon. Member for Darlington (Sir F. Graham). They were made towards the end of November. Finally, on 6th December, representations were made by the hon. Member himself.

Mr. Ewart: Did the hon. Member for Darlington (Sir F. Graham) request a meeting with the hon. Gentleman's noble Friend?

Mr. Gammans: He sent along the request for a meeting with my noble Friend with regard to the local authorities in the North of England.
May I just deal with one other point because I think some of the misunderstanding may have arisen on it. The hon. Gentleman opposite, I believe, thought there was a division between the matter of television and the shared wavelength. Technically, as I will try to show in a minute, those two things are bound up together, and, therefore, there may perhaps have arisen in the hon. Gentleman's mind the feeling that by trying to get the joint meeting between all the parties interested my noble Friend was side-tracking the issue on which the hon. Gentleman himself was particularly interested. May I assure him that we have not the slightest desire to do that. That, as it were, was the order in which the requests were made.

Mr. Ewart: On a point of order. For the purpose of the record—I hope the hon. Gentleman will give way, for I must make this point of order—the statement made by him was that the hon. Member for Darlington (Sir F. Graham) wrote in November requesting a meeting on behalf of the local authorities. I have a letter from the same body of local authorities who did not desire a conference—that is the county borough authorities—but who merely asked that Members of Parliament should raise the matter on their behalf.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. There seems to be a considerable conflict of evidence on this matter, but that should not be raised on a point of order.

Mr. Gammans: I hope I shall satisfy the hon. Member that there is on the part of my noble Friend not the slightest desire to be discourteous. Indeed, as has already been said, it would be contrary to all Parliamentary practice that any Minister of the Crown, whether in this House or in another place, should refuse to see Members of Parliament. The suggestion is fantastic. I hope I can assure the hon. Member that all I want to do is to try and meet the difficulties of the North-East Coast.
There is a long correspondence back and forth between my noble Friend and the hon. Member. My noble Friend says he hopes they will consent to come to this meeting which he has arranged with the local authorities, because he felt that local authorities, who, after all, are representatives of the people, like ourselves, were the people who asked first. To his mind, rightly or wrongly, it would appear discourteous to them if he saw any group of hon. Members from either side of the House before he saw the people who had written to him in the first instance. Therefore, right throughout the correspondence, on several occasions, my noble Friend asks the hon. Member and his Friends if they are prepared to come to this meeting.
My noble Friend goes on to say—and it will be sufficient if I quote from the last letter on the subject:
… if they prefer to meet me separately, to arrange a mutually convenient date.
That offer is still open and I hope that as a result of this somewhat turbulent discussion today the hon. Member will get in touch with my noble Friend or myself and let us have a meeting at the earliest possible moment to discuss this or any other question.

Mr. Ewart: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, and this will be the last interruption I will make—

Mr. Speaker: Unless the Minister at the Box gives way, I cannot allow the hon. Member to remain standing.

Mr. Gammans: Very well, I will give way just this once.

Mr. Ewart: I really must protest. The hon. Gentleman read out a statement from his noble Friend that he would meet us separately. But that offer was accepted by us. The meeting was

arranged for 7th February, but owing to the King's death, we mutually agreed to defer it. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us why his noble Friend refuses to give us another date?

Mr. Gammans: It is not a question of refusing at all. If it had not been for the death of His late Majesty, I presume that we would have had that meeting and that this debate would never have taken place. My noble Friend is perfectly happy to meet the hon. Member and his friends and, I hope, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), who started this argument and who has now left the Chamber. I hope that the hon. Member and his friends will accept from me the assurance that my noble Friend has not the slightest intention of being discourteous to hon. Members or in any way to impair their rights as Members of the House.
It is a great pity that party politics have to bedevil every side of civic life. Is there no civic activity that cannot be looked at except from the party angle? One of the tragedies of civic life is that party politics have to get into everything. It is a tragedy that the politics of Westminster ever invaded the town hall. For heaven's sake let us not look at this matter entirely from the party angle.
What the North-East wants is not that either side of the House should secure an advantage, but that the North-East should have television and a better radio service. Surely that is all that matters. I believe that when the constituents of hon. Members from either side of the House read in HANSARD an account of this debate, they will think we have been suffering from too many late nights and that we have got on each other's nerves and lost sight of the things that really matter.
Let me try to deal with the things that matter. I have nothing new to say on the technical side, but we should realise, first, that we cannot divorce television for the North-East Coast from the provision of better radio. On the television side my predecessor in office was faced last year with this very unfortunate set of circumstances which compelled him most reluctantly to say that the station at Pontop Pike could not be finished. If it had been possible I think television would have been provided there by now.
When we came into office we very reluctantly had to accept the same position. But my noble Friend has given a pledge that the North-East Coast will be the first to have television when the capital situation permits it. To my mind, it is right that that area should be the first, because there are there 2,500,000 people who would benefit from television whereas of the other areas which would have been provided with stations the nearest in numbers is the South of England with one million and Northern Ireland with 750,000. It is therefore right that the north-east coast should have television first.
There is also a technical reason as well; and that is that the radio links go through near Pontop Pike and it is only a question of setting up a transmitting station on that site. This matter was raised in the House yesterday and I hope I have made it clear. But it is not only a question of a transmitter. If it were we could use one of the low-power transmitters now being used at Kirk o'Shotts, Wenvoe and Holme Moss. It is a question of masts, buildings and roads and also whether we could release at the moment scarce labour and materials to provide the television sets themselves.
That is the situation in the case of television and I hope hon. Members opposite will agree that if they have not received all that their constituents want, at any rate they have a pledge. I can say categorically that that pledge will be honoured. As soon as I can come to this Box and say that we can do it nothing will give me greater pleasure.

Major Legge-Bourke: My hon. Friend has argued that the reason for deciding to give this area the first of the new stations is that the new station would be serving 2,500,000 people. Would he bear in mind that, if that is the main burden of the argument, East Anglia should also have been asking for a separate programme for its population of up to 5 million?

Mr. Gammans: That is not the only consideration. I should like to do something for East Anglia and, indeed, for any area in the country.

Captain Orr: And particularly Northern Ireland.

Mr. Gammans: On the radio side, I agree that there is no question that reception in the North-East Coast area is bad. Fortunately it does not affect the Light Programme or the Third Programme; but there is the fact that Northern Ireland and the North-East Coast have to share the same wavelength for 9½ hours a week out of a total of 114. It is actually rather worse than that, because that happens to be at peak listening hours. And what is interesting is that though the North-East Coast has a grievance Northern Ireland has one as well. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to preside over the radio divorce between these two areas.
I think the House knows the reason, but there is no harm in my repeating it. Before the war we had 10 medium wavelength stations for the regional services. Now we have only eight. The reason is that there is now the Third Programme and the Overseas Service, which we did not have before the war. The North-East coast needs, and did have before the war, two transmitters at Stagshawe and Moorside Edge. Moorside Edge does not share its wavelength with Northern Ireland, but that does not help the hon. Gentleman's constituents. It is the Stagshawe transmitter which is linked up with and married, unhappily, to Northern Ireland.
One hon. Member asked why we could not arrange it differently by two other stations sharing. The trouble would be a curious area known as a "mush" area, and the mush area would come in Durham. The mush area now comes in the middle of the Irish Sea, where, luckily, none of us have any constituents.

Mr. Peart: But the mush area in the Irish Sea does affect Cumberland.

Mr. Gammans: The main mush area is in the middle of the Irish Sea. This is an unsatisfactory arrangement and I wish we could get round it.
There is another factor which affects all of us, and that is an increase in foreign interference at night, which is particularly bad. What with mush areas and Northern Ireland chipping into North-East England, and North-East England chipping into Northern Ireland, it is undoubtedly an unsatisfactory state of affairs. The only real solution is the


employment of very high frequency. There is no hope whatever of getting another medium wavelength—no hope at all—unless we rob the Third Programme or the overseas broadcasts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne-mouth (Miss Ward) raised the question of Stagshawe before the war and the alleged pledge which was given. The pledge was not given by the Post Office, and I am sure my hon. Friend would agree, on second thoughts, that that is not a matter that she can hold against anybody occupying this office—

Mr. Peart: Withdraw.

Miss Ward: I have nothing to withdraw.

Mr. Peart: It is not true. Withdraw.

Mr. Gammans: When hon. Members have finished their private conversation, perhaps I can continue.
This wavelength of 267 metres—the pre-war Stagshawe wavelength—no longer exists; it was done away with at the Copenhagen conference. The only solution is to have very high frequency. Here, again, this is something which is not too difficult technically if the country is prepared to face up to the capital expenditure. It means not only a transmitter, but also the release of sufficient capital expenditure to make new radio sets—because, as the hon. Gentleman will realise, the present sets cannot work on V.H.F. without the use of adaptors.
The last Government felt—and I think rightly—that it would not be justified at a time of re-armament in doing that. I would point out also that the Pontop Pike television station will be combined with the Pontop Pike very high frequency, and that is the reason, as I have already explained, why we cannot discuss these two questions in isolation. That is the technical reason.
I do hope that I have convinced the hon. Gentleman that perhaps he may have misunderstood my noble Friend; I can assure him that the last thing that we wanted to do was to use a technical dodge to keep the delegations separate. On behalf of my noble Friend and myself, I hope that it will fall to my lot before very long to come to this Box and say that we can provide the North-East Coast

and other parts of the country with television and a better radio service. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that when that happy moment comes we shall not be influenced by who originally asked for it, and that from no angle whatsoever will party politics enter into the matter.

HONG KONG DOCK WORKERS (ALLOWANCE)

3.5 p.m.

Mr. Austen Albu: I wish to express my thanks for being given the opportunity to raise the matter of which I have previously given notice and which, unfortunately, I was unable to raise when the House was counted out the other Friday. I must apologise to the Civil Lord for having brought him here on this nice spring day when, I have no doubt, he would rather be taking some relaxation from his recent arduous labours.
The matter to which I want to draw the attention of the House, although not a matter affecting very large numbers of people, is one which affects the credit of the Admiralty itself. I am not suggesting that it is not a difficult matter. The origins of it go back a very long time to the early days of the war. An appearance of injustice has been given, and many of us feel that an injustice has been done, and I think it is right that the matter should be raised to see if we can have it rectified.
It concerns some of the employees of the Admiralty who serve in the dockyards abroad, and particularly those employees who were serving in Hong Kong at the beginning of the war. They include a number of different grades of employees, many of them craftsmen, and I have been asked to raise this matter, in fact, by the Amalgamated Engineering Union, for among them there are several of its members.
The facts are these. These employees, who are normally home based, when serving abroad in one of Her Majesty's dockyards, receive in addition to their normal civil pay a supplementary allowance paid in local currency to compensate them for the cost of living abroad. The condition is, of course, in the form of a normal contract, to which they are in fact entitled. In 1940, in the conditions at that time, the employees in Her Majesty's dockyards were asked if


they would join a dockyard Defence Corps. I do not know the exact details of the Corps, but I presume it was not very dissimilar from the Home Guard which was established in England at that time and in which many of us served. Certainly, it was a Corps which was intended to be willing and able to defend Her Majesty's dockyards in Hong Kong in case of attack.
In 1941, after the entry of the Japanese into the war, the situation was very serious indeed, and the local dockyard officials made very strong representations to all employees who had not already done so to join this force. One can well understand that the men employed out there were only too willing to do so, and a very large number of them joined the force in order to repel the invader.
As hon. Members may recall, it was on 8th December that the Japanese invaded the Colony. In view of what I am going to say, I think it is important that I should make one point here. It cannot have been outside the knowledge of the Admiralty, to put it mildly, that the Colony was in considerable danger, and that there was the possibility not only of attack but that it would not be possible to defend the Colony. It was, at any rate, strongly to be presumed. I do not say that many of us were not shocked by the events which took place so rapidly at that time, but the Admiralty, at any rate, must have been in possession of the facts of the situation.
It is important to emphasise this, because the argument has been advanced that the Admiralty were unaware of the conditions existing in the area at the time and did not foresee or anticipate the possibility that the Colony might, in fact, be captured. This is important when one considers the sequence of events. When those men joined this Corps they were assured that they would still be treated as civilians and they would continue to receive their ordinary rate of pay and their colonial allowance. There was no question of them receiving Army pay and allowances as the Corps was not regarded, either by the men or the officials who persuaded or invited them to join, as an army unit, but simply as an emergency Defence Corps.
This assurance was given in Hong Kong, but some of the men, apparently

realising the complications that might arise and wanting to make sure, as people do, did make specific representations to the dockyard authorities. As a result, it is know that the Commodore at Hong Kong sent a special signal to the Admiralty on 17th December, 1941, which was just over a week before the Colony was actually captured.
According to the information received from the Admiralty, this signal read as follows:
To dispel anxiety regarding maintenance of evacuated families request immediate confirmation that Civil Dockyard European personnel now mobilised in Dockyard Defence Corps will receive full civil pay including Colonial Allowance.
I think it is important to note the words, "including Colonial Allowance." In reply to that message a signal was received from the Admiralty on 24th December which simply said, "Confirmed." Two days after that, on 26th December, the dockyard, unfortunatley, had to surrender and all the men who were there were captured and interned.
I do not think we need go over the appalling conditions which all those who were taken prisoner in the Far East, whether serving men or civilians, suffered in these camps, the great brutality, privation and suffering which they went through. Those who did not die of disease certainly suffered terribly from these conditions. One member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, about whom representations have been made, suffered a very severe injury to his spinal cord, was an in-patient at a hospital until the Colony was relieved, and cannot walk now without wearing a metal caliper splint on his right leg and without the aid of a stick. That is only one case among many hundreds that could be mentioned.
Those who were fortunate enough to survive were released four years later and when they returned to England, quite naturally, in view of the signal that had been exchanged, they applied for the arrears of wages and colonial allowance to which they were entitled, their right to which had been confirmed in the signal sent from the Admiralty to the Colony a couple of days before the invasion actually took place. But to their intense surprise and disappointment the payment of the allowance was denied and a very long period of negotiation then ensued.
In 1948, the Admiralty agreed to pay these men this colonial allowance, but only for the period from the date they joined the corps until the date on which they were interned, which was merely from 7th to 25th December, 1941. In spite of the fact that the whole of this matter had been—as was thought—fully confirmed and was fully understood both in the Colony and in London at the time, when the corps was first formed, and despite the assurance given by the Admiralty in their signal it was first of all repudiated altogether and then a change was made, the Admiralty relenting to the extent of this very small number of days—18 days. It is clear that the Admiralty at that time had some doubt as to the rights and wrongs of the case.
I suggest that it is quite clear that there is very serious doubt as to the rights and wrongs of the case, and the way it has been treated has given rise to a very strong feeling of injustice on the part of the people who have suffered in that way. It is rather interesting to note that one of the reasons put forward by the Admiralty for not being able to accede to what appeared to be the natural rights of the men is that they were—as they put it—addressing themselves to the situation at the time.
I do not understand what that means. Perhaps the Civil Lord will be able to explain. As I have already stated, a signal, confirming the men's understanding of their conditions of service in the corps, was sent only two days before the dockyard surrendered, and it is quite incredible to think that the Admiralty were not aware of all the conditions appertaining at that time in the dockyard. After all, if this comparatively minor signal—not perhaps minor to the men but to the country as a whole—and a reply could have been sent at that time, one must assume that a very much larger number had been sent and were passing between the Admiralty and the Commodore about the military conditions in the area.
Therefore, I do not think that this particular excuse can be taken as a very serious one. I cannot understand, in particular, the argument put forward in a letter which the Admiralty sent to one of the men in 1947, from which I will quote:

As regards the signal quoted there is no question but that the intention to credit Colonial Allowance was based on two points (a) that the decision had no regard whatever to the position of the staff in the event of capture and (b) their status for the period in question would be that of civilians.
I do not understand that. This question had never been raised before. The Admiralty had never made any conditions about their confirmation of the conditions under which the men would serve, that they would receive their civil pay and that they would receive colonial allowance.
In view of the fact that the Admiralty must have known the critical position that existed in the Colony at the time one might well have thought that they would have taken into account all the possibilities, including the very likely—almost probable—possibility that these men would be captured. Yet a signal was sent without any qualification, and, naturally, the men concerned considered that the Admiralty were bound to adhere to their decision, just as any other employer would be legally bound to do.
I suggest that the attitude of the Admiralty has really been contradictory and even after this time, admitting the difficulties there may have been in the situation, I think there is a case for rectifying what is, after all, not likely to be a very expensive matter but one which is giving cause for great dissatisfaction and a great feeling of injustice among a number of dockyard employees.
Although these men had their colonial allowances credited to them for the period from 7th to 25th December, 1941, the Admiralty, looking at it again, afterwards decided that they were not entitled to it, and that they should not have been given it—and they took the necessary steps to recover the money although it had already been handed over. But in 1948, in view of representations, the second decision was reversed and the men were allowed to retain the colonial allowance for this short period.
When the men volunteered to join the Corps in 1941 they were provided with arms and uniforms, but their colonial allowance continued to be paid up to the period when they were captured. I cannot see any justification for the Admiralty refusing to continue to pay the colonial allowance merely because the men were taken prisoners of war.


The men concerned feel very strongly about this and they feel that the Admiralty must have been so fully aware of the position that they should never have made the promise in the first place if, in fact, they were not going to carry it out or, if there were any conditions attached, arising out of the military or any other situation, or any other factors, they should not have sent the signal and should not have confirmed the conditions. If the Admiralty feel they have made a mistake, even after this length of time and after the representations which have been made, I believe that if they change their minds and make this concession it will create a considerable amount of good will.
When they were taken prisoners-of-war, the men had not only to live under difficult conditions but they had to live in camps and hospitals where the cost of living was quite high, if not considerably higher than when they were living under normal conditions in Hong Kong. Some of their families were interned. Others were evacuated before the surrender. Many of them incurred very heavy debts and liabilities which they have had to meet since their release.
I suggest that the Admiralty have placed themselves in a rather invidious position in this case. I do not say they can be accused of bad faith, but I suggest that there is still time for what appears to be a wrong to be righted. It could, of course, have been dealt with in another way. A request was made that the matter should be submitted to arbitration, but this, too, was refused, I believe after a good deal of cogitation. There was no other way by which the men could have ventilated the grievance—it could not be ventilated in a court of law—and that is why they have, finally, asked me to raise the matter in the House.
Although the story is complicated, both in the changes which have taken place in the Admiralty's view of the matter and in the decisions which have been taken, I believe the facts are, nevertheless, clear. It is a fact that the promise was given quite clearly and unequivocally in the signal which was sent before these men were captured. It confirmed the decision which the Admiralty had taken about the conditions under which these men should serve in the Defence Force. I ask the Civil Lord whether he cannot now

agree to make this concession or, as I would prefer to put it, to grant the rights which these men demand.

Mr. Speaker: May I say, in the interests of hon. Members who are to follow, that it would be convenient if this discussion could be brought to an end at a quarter to four.

3.22 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Edwards: I am very sorry to have to intervene in this Adjournment debate, but I think it would be wrong if I did not accept responsibility for all the complaints which have been uttered by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu). As the House knows, I held the post of Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1945–1951 and I was as much responsible for the decision about the civilian employee members of the A.E.U., and perhaps other unions, as any other person, and certainly more responsible than the present Civil Lord.
No doubt the Civil Lord will provide an answer in accordance with the facts with which he has been presented, but I want, too, to provide an answer and to say that this matter has received the most careful consideration, and when I was Civil Lord I met a delegation of Members of Parliament from the A.E.U. on this issue. I thought I had been able to satisfy them, as a Labour Minister, that the treatment which had been meted out to these people in Hong Kong was right and proper under the circumstances.
I have to speak from memory, because I cannot look through the records, but there is one thing I can say without fear of contradiction. What is being asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton is something more than was given to the soldiers and sailors who were prisoners of war and something more than was given to the civilian employees in Singapore who were taken prisoner by the Japanese. These men were treated no differently by the Japanese, whether they were taken prisoner in Singapore or in Hong Kong, but what is being asked is that something more should be given to those in Hong Kong simply and solely because some form of signal went out from Hong Kong. Something more is being asked not on the rights or the merits of the case of the civilian employees in Hong Kong, by comparison with other civilian employees, but simply in order


to take advantage of a signal. I strongly disapprove of any such attempt.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton would have to agree with me that he is arguing for something from the Admiralty which was turned down until 1951, and which would give a small number of members of his union some preferential treatment—something over and above that which was given to those other people who had the misfortune, during the war, to be taken prisoner as members of the Services or who were civilian employee internees. That, I think, is quite wrong.
We should not try to obtain concessions for any one section of people by comparison with others simply and solely because pressure is brought to bear from either here or there. As I say, I am sure there is quite a good case to be made out by the Civil Lord. He has the job of replying to the debate today instead of me, but from my recollection I would say that, as a result of their being given military status, most of the civilian employees interned from Hong Kong received far more money than they would have received had they been on civilian pay plus colonial allowances, and far more benefit. There may be one or two cases where they did not receive quite the same amount of money as they would have received had they been paid the colonial allowance plus their civilian pay but, if my memory is correct, we can say that scarcely one of them was worse off as a result of being given military status.
I want to tell the House that I accept my share of responsibility for this decision. Naturally, when I have taken a decision myself, when in office, I want to stand by it, whether I am in opposition or whether I am a Member of the Government. I hope that the Civil Lord will be able to agree with my view that the men in Hong Kong referred to today have been treated every bit as well as the other men employed by the Admiralty. I see no special reason why they should have preferential treatment because of a signal which may have been sent—possibly wrongly, although I do not necessarily say that—to Hong Kong in very difficult times.

3.29 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: We surely have an unprecedented position today when a previous Civil Lord finds it necessary to come to the Opposition

Front Bench in order, presumably, to defend the present Government. It is a curious constitutional theory which places an obligation upon those who held office in the past to defend the Government after they have left their office.
Let us put this matter in its right perspective. This is a claim which the Amalgamated Engineering Union have never given up since 1946. From the point of view of the trade union, it matters not, in our argument for our members, whether my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. W. J. Edwards) is in office or whether an hon. Member from the Conservative Party is in office. Abstract justice is not conditioned by the fact that there is an affiliation between the trade union and the political party. That would be an entirely wrong conception of trade unions.
This is a case in which national arbitration has been refused. It is a case which was prosecuted throughout the time of the last Government and, when we failed to get industrial satisfaction, the A.E.U. Members of Parliament went to see my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney about it. May I say that had my hon. Friend not left office, this Adjournment debate would still have taken place?
We may still have the same answer today from the Government, but I do not see any reason why a Member of the Opposition should rush in to defend the Government. I feel sure that my hon. Friend has made a better defence of the Government than the Civil Lord himself will make. Abstract justice, or the claim to justice by a trade union, is not conditioned by the political complexion of the Government, and my hon. Friend seemed not to understand this and to have an entirely wrong conception of the trade union's position.
When the men got that signal, that their colonial allowances were to be honoured and that their conditions were to be fulfilled, they assumed that the Admiralty's signal bore the authority of the Government. Indeed, broadly speaking, when subordinates carry out the policy of superiors—and this is so even in private affairs—the superiors consider themselves bound by their subordinates' decisions—if an order is given and taken. These men, when they got that signal, thought they were going to fight the


Japanese, not the Admiralty—as they had to do for years and years.
It seems to be assumed that we are looking for some political favour—or that we were, because a certain political party was in power. I ask the Civil Lord to accept from me that that is not so. We are trade unionists pressing a case, irrespective of politics, to the ultimate limit. If our case is turned down today, we appreciate that we can go no further, but we hope it will not be, because it has to be remembered that these men were prisoners in the hands of the Japanese and that they were hardly done by and injuriously affected by this misunderstanding.
We owe it to these people to press their demands on their behalf, and it is purely accidental whether we happen to be behind the Government or in Opposition, and that has nothing to do with the case. I hope that, on reflection, the Civil Lord will find himself in a position to say that he can concede this case.

3.32 p.m.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Wingfield Digby): I think that the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. J. Edwards) was quite right to intervene on this matter, and to explain to the House the reasons that led him—after very careful consideration, as I know—to take the decision he did during his six years of office. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) was quite wrong in saying that the hon. Member for Stepney was defending the Government. He was not, of course. He was defending the decision of the late Government, because the late Government made up their minds on this matter and stuck firmly to their point of view.
Since I came into office I also have looked at this matter, and I can assure the House that I have come to it with an unprejudiced mind. But I have reached the same decision on the matter, as to the merits of the case, as did my predecessor, the hon. Member for Stepney. Of course, we are in some difficulty in this case in that the events referred to took place so long ago—11 years ago; and, unfortunately, during that time a lot of evidence has disappeared. It is no longer possible to confirm all the facts.
As the House has already heard, there was a meeting last summer of Members of Parliament opposite—as long ago as last July—on this subject. I was interested to see that at that meeting the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) did appreciate, according to the record of the meeting, one point which he omitted from his speech—the point which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stepney made so well—that the real request here is for a special case. It is a request for treatment better than that received by any soldier or sailor or airman—

Mr. C. R. Hobson: This is a case put forward for carrying out a point made with the Flag Officer in Hong Kong at that time, who gave an assurance to these members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union that the allowances would be paid. That is the issue.

Mr. Digby: I think the issue is whether these people, for a special reason, should be given better treatment than any soldier, sailor or airman who fell into the hands of the Japanese—or any civilian either—in Hong Kong or Singapore, or elsewhere. That is the issue we cannot burke—as to whether the facts justify such treatment.
Reference has been made to the colonial allowance. Of course, the purpose of that allowance and its military equivalent is to offset the higher cost of living in certain places overseas, and we must remember that when we are discussing whether or not it should have been payable in these circumstances.
I would remind the House of the agreement which is signed by an industrial employee who goes to a dockyard overseas. Article 7 says that he will undertake that he will be trained in the use of guns and small arms and will aid in the defence of the dockyard—Hong Kong in this case—or other place of his employment in any capacity ashore or afloat in the vicinity of the port, and that in the event of war or emergency occurring he will continue his service and become subject to naval discipline.
It is true that, at the time when these events were happening, there was some doubt at the Admiralty as to the nature and conditions of the Hong Kong Dockyard Defence Corps. For example, as


far as I can judge, it was not clearly realised at the Admiralty that it had been merged with the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. That is not altogether surprising.
It was at the height of the war. People here were naturally thinking very much in terms of the Home Guard at home, and it was naturally assumed, I think, that the conditions in the Corps were rather similar, and that it would be a question of doing the same there as the Home Guard did here—living a civilian life and and serving part-time.
Let me remind the House of the sequence of events, which were extremely rapid, because they have a very great bearing on this case. On 7th December there was Pearl Harbour. On the following day, 8th December, the Corps was mobilised. On 17th December the signal was received from Hong Kong. On 22nd December the reply was sent, and only three days later, on 25th December, Hong Kong fell. It will be seen from this that the circumstances were somewhat confused and moving very fast; and, of course, there was preoccupation at the Admiralty at the time with very serious events in other parts of the world, apart from Hong Kong.
The hon. Members for Edmonton and Leeds, West, have referred to this signal which was sent, and the text of it has already been read out. The fact of the matter is that it was not clear as to what the real intention was in sending that signal. It was not clearly realised that, in sending that signal, it was intended to ask for special treatment for the Corps—because it would have been special treatment in the circumstances as we now know them.
For reasons which it is not possible clearly to define after this lapse of time, it is now certain that there was a rather vital omission from the actual text which was sent out, and it was not exactly the same as that which was received. The words which were left out referred to the balance of civil pay. I will read the text:
To dispel anxiety regarding maintenance of evacuated families request immediate confirmation that civil dockyard European personnel now mobilised in Dockyard Defence Corps will receive"—
and here come words that were left out—
balance of civil pay including Colonial allowance.

The words "balance of" were left out. Had the signal been received in the full form at the Admiralty there is no doubt it would have been clearly understood that the question at issue was that of balance of civilian pay for those serving whole-time in this Corps.

Mr. Hobson: The hon. Gentleman does not deny that the signal was received?

Mr. Digby: No.

Mr. Hobson: Therefore, he will not deny that it was reasonable for the men at the other end to accept the signal at its face value in the way that has been stated?

Mr. Digby: I think that there was genuine misunderstanding on both sides, in perfectly good faith. It was certainly not clear to the Admiralty, at that very late stage of affairs in Hong Kong, that an attempt was being made to get special treatment on the question of the balance of civil pay. Had that been understood, the reply, I think, would certainly have been different.
There has been some comment on the brevity of the reply. But when we remember that this was only three days before Hong Kong fell and that it was essential to keep signal traffic to an absolute minimum in those very difficult days, it is not in the least surprising that the Admiralty should have attempted to make the shortest possible signal. Of course, we know that the signal that had been received was mutilated, probably for the same reason. There was a definite confusion as to the exact status of the Corps, and there is no doubt that if the Admiralty had understood the position fully the reply would have been quite different.
That leads me to events after the war. It is interesting to note that on the repatriation of these men to Australia they were treated as civilians. That shows that the Admiralty were quite consistent on this point, and it shows that the Admiralty did believe that they had always been civilians, and that there had been no question of treating them as soldiers—in which case the question of balance of civil pay would have arisen.
In 1946, at the request of these men, they were treated as soldiers. They could not lose under this arrangement and, in


point of fact, figures which I have show that a great many of them gained considerably. For example, in the case of a Departmental clerical officer who was a single man, the net gain was £115; for a second-class draughtsman who was a private, it was £357; and for a clerical officer who was a sergeant, it was £334 13s. 6d.

Mr. Hobson: What about the dockyard labourers?

Mr. Digby: I have not got any figures out for industrial employees, but I am told that in most cases their gain was greater than that of non-industrial employees, because their civilian earnings were on the whole lower—so they gained more, not less, than in the particular cases I have quoted.
I think that I should make another point. Some of those employed in the dockyards were anxious to join the Corps but were refused because it was thought that their job was too important. The men who did join were, in fact, in a better position than those who were refused permission to join although they had volunteered. They were in a better position than Army or Air Force personnel who were there. Although such personnel were in uniform and had military rank, they have not had the same treatment as has now been accorded to the members of the Corps. Full Army lodging allowance has been paid tax free, for the term of captivity; and they also received Japanese campaign pay and all the other requisite allowances.
The question of the colonial allowance as opposed to military status was not raised until 1947, and it has, as I have said before, been discussed. I must make it clear again that all civilians lost certain allowances on capture, and this applies to all civilians throughout the Far East who were captured by the Japanese. The reason was that the colonial allowance was given to offset the higher cost of living in particular cases overseas. I must also stress that all soldiers lost their equivalent allowance, which is the local overseas allowance.
The request, therefore, is for special treatment that can only be justified by

the telegram. The Admiralty do not feel, however, that the wording of the telegram is sufficient justification, for the reasons I have given, for this special treatment for these men as opposed to all other prisoners of the Japanese.
I am sure that the House has the greatest sympathy for all those who fell into the hands of the Japanese. It has been argued that expenses in captivity might have been greater for the members of the Corps than for soldiers and sailors. I have looked into that point and I do not think that it bears very much investigation. In fact, only about one-tenth of the men concerned still had their families in Hong Kong, as 400 to 500 families had already been evacuated in 1940, either back to this country or to Australia.
With regard to the families in the United Kingdom, they were, of course, receiving from their husband's pay to the amount that was designed to meet the cost of living in the United Kingdom. That argument also applies to those in Australia, although there were special arrangements in Australia, particularly from 1941 onwards, for making extra grants in special cases of hardship; but there was no question, so far as the families who were left in Hong Kong were concerned, of being able to send extra food to the camp in which the women and children were interned.
In conclusion, I must stress again that this matter has been exhaustively and sympathetically examined over a period of five years. I have gone into this matter very carefully, and I cannot see sufficient reason to reverse the decision of the previous Government. I do not think that many fresh factors have emerged in the interesting discussion we have had on this matter this afternoon.
I must say again how sympathetic we are to these men in view of the ordeal they went through, but I do not believe that we should be justified in giving them better treatment than that received by the soldiers, sailors and airmen, and those other civilians who were captured, unless we were absolutely certain that we had a cast iron case for so doing, and I do not think that such a case has been made out.

INDUSTRY (PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY)

3.50 p.m.

Mr. Harold Watkinson: Before the last war it would perhaps have been unnecessary for a matter of this kind to be raised on the Adjournment of the House. It would probably have been felt that a matter of production efficiency was, above all, one for industry itself to deal with.
But today things have changed, and any Government, whatever its political colour, is inextricably mixed up with the problems of productivity and production efficiency in industry. The present Government cannot evade its responsibility, and I am very glad of the opportunity of raising the subject because we have had singularly little time so far in this Parliament to discuss it.
I believe that it is a very important and very grave matter, and I hope to show in the course of this very short debate that upon the question of production efficiency and productivity depends the general future of our country in the difficult years ahead. It is not my object to make some sort of plea for more pious exhortations to greater productivity or lip-service to the cause of production efficiency. In many cases we have had far too much of that sort of thing over the past six years. What we want now is a new and more practical approach to the problem in view of the very grave need for an increase in production if we are to get over our economic difficulties in the next few years.
My hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade told me, in reply to a Question the other day, that his Department is now taking a rather greater responsibility for production problems, and I believe that the Anglo-American Council of Productivity is now in the care of his Department. Yet on the same day the Chancellor of the Exchequer told me that he still presides over the National Production Advisory Council on Industry, the general body which has in the past dealt with these productivity and production efficiency problems.
I hope that this does not mean that the important matter of production efficiency will fall between two stools; I hope that it may be possible for my hon. and

learned Friend in his reply to tell us that the general responsibilities of his Department and of the Treasury for production efficiency and productivity are settled, and certainly that the division of responsibility does not in any way show that the Government is paying any less regard to this most important matter.
I believe that there is a risk at the moment that, because of shortages of materials, including steel, and the shrinkage of foreign markets, regrettable enough in some industries like the textile industry, we may adopt a somewhat defeatist attitude in this country and say that, although the ideal of greater production efficiency is a very desirable one, in the present difficult conditions it is just not attainable.
If the present division of responsibility means that the Departments concerned are adopting any sort of defeatist attitude, that would be of the greatest disservice at the moment to the economic future of our country, and the debate will be valuable if it gives my hon. and learned Friend a chance to clear up that point. I am sure that there is no desire not to press on, as much as ever our resources will allow, towards increased production and greater production efficiency.
If it is believed that the need for it is any less, perhaps I might point out that almost every year since the war this country has attained a rather greater increase in output than we had anticipated. Part of it was due to the fact that the working population during that time has gone up by some 7 or 8 per cent., but, however it was achieved, we achieved in those years an average of some 7 or 8 per cent. increase in production each year. As a rough guide, 1 per cent. increase in production equals £80 million, so it can be a very valuable bonus to our national production each year.
Sadly enough, however, in latter years the total each year has tended to fall. In the Budget debates last year I warned the late Chancellor of the Exchequer that I thought that at that time we had come to a point where he could not count on any future increase in production and in the total of the national production. That warning has certainly been fulfilled, because it is obvious at the moment that we are not


getting increases in production this year. In fact, I am gravely concerned that by the end of the year we may see a decline in the level of our production, and that is something which at this time we just cannot accept.
I notice that in his Budget speech the Chancellor was very careful not to define any figure for an increase in production for this year. We have not yet had the Economic Survey, and it may well be that that will give some sort of forecast, but on the whole we must accept the fact that for the moment we are only just holding our own in the level of production when we ought to be making material advances.
Let us look at it from another point of view. There is another reason why we must not in any circumstances at this time be defeatist about trying to increase our efficiency in industry and in every form of activity in this country. Increased output and efficiency is the only short cut to lower costs. As my hon. and learned Friend is to reply to the debate, I should like to mention two points which show the dangers and difficulties we shall face in the foreign markets if we cannot reduce our costs as well as increase our efficiency.
There is a review published by Lloyds Bank which always contains a very valuable statistical analysis of our trading position. In the current issue there is a series of graphs and tables showing the position with regard to German and Japanese competition. I hope hon. Members who are interested will study those graphs. They will see that in every case the United Kingdom graph is falling—in other words, our exports to India and Pakistan, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Indonesia or Sweden are falling—but in each case the exports from Germany and Japan are rising.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: They are not re-arming.

Mr. Watkinson: That is possible. I am merely dealing with the facts of the case, and I shall come to the point about re-arming in a moment.
I am not sure that the country as a whole has realised that we are not only facing the need to increase production efficiency, but are also facing the need to reduce our costs if we are to hold our

position in the markets of the world. I have here a letter dated 27th February, 1952, from the agent for Brazil of a company in which I am interested. It says:
The first big Japanese industrial exhibition in South America since the war will be inaugurated on 18th March in Rio de Janeiro.
The agent adds that the Japanese have taken a large building, and that there is to be a full-scale exhibition of some thousands of Japanese products, and that it is in anticipation of the shortly expected normalisation of commercial exchanges between Brazil and Japan.
That sort of thing is going on all over the world. The subject of production efficiency is vital, not only because of our internal position, but because of the need to produce more and to help to balance the Budget by getting an increase in production each year. It is also equally vital because unless we get our costs down and make our products more competitive, we shall find ourselves priced out of the markets of the world. I do not think there is any doubt that it is a suitable subject to raise, for it is an important subject to which any Government must give serious attention.
It may be asked, what is the Government's responsibility in this matter? Is not the matter one that can be dealt with by industry without any help or assistance from the Government at all? It is my belief and that of a lot of people in industry that if we are going to get through our difficulties we have got to do it by making a new approach to our industrial relations, and that has got to be on the basis of partnership. Partnership comprises three main groups; organised labour, including the trade unions; management, by which I mean technical management and the whole level of supervisory management; and the State itself.
The State is inexplicably mixed up with industry, and if it does not play its full part we cannot get the results we want. With all respect to the Federation of British Industries, the T.U.C., the National Union of Manufacturers, or any other organisations concerned with organised labour and management in industry, it is the Government's responsibility to save us from the financial crash which faces us at the end of this year


unless we can carry out our essential tasks.
At the moment I am not concerned with assessing the responsibility for that state of affairs, but wherever the responsibility may lie we are faced at the end of the year with irretrievable financial bankruptcy unless we achieve the essential tasks laid before us by the Chancellor. If it is the Government's job to do that, it is the Government's job to foster it by the only way they can, and that is to increase efficiency and output in industry.
I do not think there is any argument, despite shortages of material and all the other difficulties of our time, that the time is ripe for a new approach to this problem. When I say a new approach, I think it is essential that we should bring a fresh mind to this task, and I hope the present changes going on in the handling of this question by the Government will result in that new and fresh approach being made. I do not think there is any doubt that if we could make such a fresh approach we could still obtain in this country, despite all our difficulties and shortages of steel, coal and other essential things, a substantial increase in production, particularly in the engineering industries where at the moment we have full order books for export orders and even fuller order books for essential commitments at home, such as for re-armament and other essential purposes.
If we could replace the idea of productivity by a new tradition and call it mutual aid—I will explain what I mean by that in a moment—we could pull out quite substantial reserves that I believe exist within industry, and I think that those reserves over three or four years might prove to be as much as a 20 to 25 per cent. increase in production. If we could do that at this time it would solve most of our present problems on the economic front.
To do that we must raise the general level of efficiency of all firms in industry to that of the most progressive, share out the scarce raw materials and design methods.

Mr. Hobson: More planning?

Mr. Watkinson: We will come to that in a moment. We will have to remove restrictive practices by labour and management.

Mr. Hobson: What are the restrictive practices by labour at the moment?

Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Gentleman will content himself for a little while, we will come to that. If we could remove restrictive practices by labour and management and increase efficiency and output in the nationalised industries by a new approach in management and labour relations in those industries and get a general encouragement of new ideas throughout industry, I do not think that that target of 20 to 25 per cent. increase in output over perhaps three or five years is impossible. It is certainly not too high a target to set ourselves in the crisis we face. All these things call for action on the part of the Government, and I want to suggest briefly what that action ought to be.
To begin with, the regional boards for industry are sadly in need of an overhaul, because they do not work very efficiently. While I am not in any way reflecting on the members who sit on them, either on the side of management, or of organised labour, I do not think they are always able to provide the kind of service needed by the member firms in the area, or act as an efficient channel between Government and industry.
Also, it is high time that the Anglo-American productivity teams should be stopped. We have sent quite enough to the United States and every one of them has brought back the same lesson, apart from various technical details which are helpful. The major lesson is that the difference between our industry and American industry is one not of plant and equipment—which is important, but not vitally important—but of the climate of opinion. In America there is the will to produce the maximum at whatever cost; in this country we have not always today got that will. That lesson stands out to everyone who reads the valuable reports of the productivity teams. It is up to us to learn and apply that lesson. It is obvious enough.
I am disappointed to find that more has not been done to apply to British industry the lessons learned particularly the main lesson, that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of increased output and efficiency in any industry. We should make every attempt to use the valuable services provided by our


American friends in the Mutual Security Agency, but we should not waste any more of their time by running off to America and looking at their industries. We should do more ourselves to put our own house in order.
When the Anglo-American Council on Productivity is wound up, it should be replaced by a small, efficient, streamlined body which might be called for the sake of convenience the Production Efficiency Board. I would like to see such a board set up with a dozen or so members equally representing management and the trade unions. It is only by those two working together in efficient, friendly and comradely concert that we shall do this job.
The board might be presided over, as in the case of the N.P.A.C.I., by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary or, if it is to devolve on the Board of Trade, we should be delighted to see my hon. Friend presiding over such a board. Its task would be to work through the trade associations, to arrange full mutual aid within every industry in which it is desirable at the moment that we should increase production, and that is practically every one. Its function would also include the nationalised industries.
In my own industry, the machine tool industry, we have had such an arrangement for many years. We have had our own production efficiency panels. We have interchanged foremen and managements and have held meetings in one another's works and freely disclosed to one another any ideas which we thought would help the general level of productivity over the entire industry, even when we thought those ideas were giving us a start over our competitors. We have lost nothing by it, because in raising the general level of efficiency of the whole industry we have, incidentally, raised our own level of production and profitability also. That is something which I should like to see carried out over the whole sphere of industry.
The way to do that is to have a small efficient board dealing with the question of productivity and able to say to an industry, "You are not helping yourself enough. You have not applied the lessons of your own productivity team.

You are not willing to share out your own bright ideas amongst yourselves to help yourselves. You are not sharing scarce raw materials, or good design ideas to save steel or materials or to help you to get greater output per man hour." That is what this kind of board should do on the level of management.
On the level of the workers in industry it could do a great deal also, because it could help to sweep away some of the practices which still restrict output. If the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) wants an example, take, for instance, the Sheffield file industry, where the hand grinding of files is a very skilled operation and where the trade unions, for reasons best known to themselves, restrict the entry into the industry, as they do in some sections of the printing industry. I think that that is done through a quite genuine fear of redundancy at some future time.
The matter could then be well thrashed out by a board of the kind I have suggested, which could have high level trade union representation on it. Let us see whether there is anything in that attitude and whether it is wise to restrict the entry of apprentices, or whether it would be wiser to allow a greater entry. I am not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but it is desirable that these things should be brought out into the light of day.
It is equally desirable that restrictive practices by managements, where they exist, should be brought into the light of day. If one is fighting for life—and the country is fighting for its economic life—it would be very unwise to let anything at all stand in the way. Only a board of this kind could bring these things to the surface and have them swept away if they are a hindrance to greater standards of production and efficiency in industry. There is always a great temptation when talking on something which is very near and dear to one's heart to elaborate at too great length, but I hope that I have given my hon. and learned Friend some idea of the importance which I and a great many of my colleagues in industry attach to an absolute refusal to accept that we cannot get still more efficiency and output from industry, whether it is in coal, steel, engineering or anything else.
I hope that whatever changes are to be made in the set-up that deals with production efficiency and productivity, they will be such as to help this work rather than to take some kind of defeatist attitude and to accept that in present circumstances, because of shortages and difficulties, we must for the moment let it go by. That would be the greatest possible mistake in present circumstances.
I hope we shall tell our American friends that we thank them for the enormous assistance they have given in receiving our productivity teams, but that we are now concentrating all our effort on applying the lessons we have learned. In any case, our leading firms, in any industry, are equally as efficient as, and very often more efficient than, their counterparts in the U.S.A. In many cases, we have nothing to learn from America, particularly in our machine tool industry.
What we have to do is to bring the level of the less efficient units up to the efficiency level of the leading firms. In this way, we should get a great increase in production from this one task alone. We must face up to the fact that in the long term, payment in industry, whether to management or to operatives, must be keyed to production and that earnings must be related entirely to output; that the more a man can produce and, therefore, the more he can earn on that basis, the better for him and for the country also. We must have a direct relationship between earnings and output, and this should apply equally, whether on the floor of the shop or on the board of management, because there we get the direct incentive and the direct return for greater attention. That is something again which a small production efficiency board might well discuss with the trade unions, the British Employers' Confederation, the F.B.I. and all the other interests concerned.
My main purpose is not to suggest the details. I do not think that this is a party political matter. There are no political issues involved, but the Government have to come into this because they have to give a lead to both sides of industry to do this vital job. If, for example, we could get a 10 per cent. increase in efficiency this year—though that, I think, is impossible now—but if we could get it next year, it would do more than anything to solve our economic problems.

It would lift the burden of re-armament, and that is a thing which the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and his friends have forgotten. The way to solve the re-armament problem is not by throwing it off our shoulders, but by becoming more efficient and swallowing it up by increased production efficiency. That is not at all impossible if we do the job in the way it should be done.
Nor is anything else impossible for this small island of ours if we could become as efficient as we should be were we at full efficiency with a partnership between organised labour, management and the State. If the Government can give us that lead nothing is impossible, and all the economic problems which seem so grave and so menacing today could be overcome in the next few years. I hope that, at least, my hon. Friend will say that this ambition is still one to which the Government will devote its most earnest attention.

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Hubbard: I fully agree with the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson) that it is essential to get maximum production, but I deprecate his statement that we have not the will to do it in this country. That is most unfair. I appreciate there are modern methods of manufacture in America, but I do not think it will help very much to tell our people, who have increased production at a far greater rate since the war than before, that they are worse off than workers in America and that they have not the will to do the job. That is not the way to increase production.

Mr. Watkinson: I think that the hon. Gentleman, though quite sincere, is misrepresenting me, if he has read the productivity reports, he will have found that nearly all of them say that we work far harder in this country than the average worker in America. The trouble is that we do not get such good results.

Mr. Hubbard: The hon. Member said that we could do it if we had the will to do it. When reading these reports about American industry, we must keep in mind that there is no comparison between America and this country on the question of devastation of industry. We had a tremendous lee-way to make up and great credit is due to workers and management for the way that lee-way


has been made up. Let us concentrate on how best to serve our own industry rather than make comparisons between American industry and our own workers.
This question of productivity is of vital importance to us, but I suggest that if some time had been spent on getting to the root causes of the difficulties in our own industries, rather than becoming so interested in the American industries, valuable though that experience has been, it would have served a much better purpose. When we consider the problem of production and efficiency in industry we have to get right to the very bottom and one cannot get any lower than the bowels of the earth, where the coal comes from.
I suggest to the Minister and his colleagues in the Government that, unless they study the root of the problem, they may set up as many joint committees as they like, but they will take us nowhere. Productivity and efficiency in productivity is a long-term matter. Such is the position of our basic industry, coal, that 19 out of every 20 other industries depend on coal. In another 10 years it may well be that we shall have the greatest difficulty in mining enough coal to meet our needs because experienced face-workers will be too old for the job. That is of vital importance.
There has been a tremendous change in mining methods during the last few years. At one time, before the introduction of a lot of machinery, the young miner was an assistant to the miner at the coal face. There he learned his trade, as most apprentices do. But there have been vast changes. Mines have been rapidly mechanised during the last 20 years. Some have been mechanised to such an extent that it has been possible to dispense with a large amount of manpower. The machinery not only cuts the coal, but lifts it into the conveyer. That is very good, but that state of affairs does not apply all over the country. There is another method by which the coal is undercut but an experienced coal face worker has to win that coal and manhandle it into the conveyer.
The point on which the Government ought to concentrate is that before mechanisation each face worker had an assistant. These young men were apprentices. Under the new system there is a

wall of coal sometimes 200 yards long, and sometimes more, with no one at the coal face other than the experienced coal cutter. The young man rarely sees the coal face today. Because of that, we are losing our grip on the coal winner. We could not expect an apprentice plumber to become efficient if he never saw a journeyman plumber at work. We could not expect a young lad to become an efficient engineer or tool maker unless he saw the job being done.
In our colliery districts the coal winners are ageing. They are becoming far too old, and there are no young men to replace them. No matter how many men we take into the mines, whether from Italy or elsewhere, unless they have an opportunity to gain experience and to get what is described as "pit sense" at the coal face, we can have as many working committees as we like but in 10 years' time we shall not get the coal. No matter how we may plan ahead for co-operation between workers and management, unless we get the coal we shall be heading for disaster.
I assure hon. Members that I do not accept the suggestion that the country belongs solely to those represented by hon. Gentlemen opposite or those represented by ourselves. This is our country and we do not want to see it go down into economic chaos. We are now reaching the stage when some coal cutters are no longer able to do the hard work which is necessary. Some of them have to manhandle up to 15 tons of coal per day. These men are leaving that type of job because they find it impossible to carry on.
Why cannot we have an investigation into the practicability of bringing in younger men to assist the older coal winners? That would serve two purposes. It would enable the experienced coal winner to work longer, because he would be getting some assistance. At the same time, it would be training the younger men to do the job. It is of tremendous importance, if we are anxious to secure the economic future of our country, that we should start at the beginning of the alphabet and not at the end. We should not waste our time either sending deputations or working parties to America or setting up committee after committee in this country who do nothing but talk. Let us study the root problems of our industry.
In the old days—and I do not want to make this a party matter—one of the things that was holding up production was the fear of unemployment. We, at least, have got to give a guarantee to workers in all industries—and, after all, they are the people on whom, jointly with the management and administrative staff, we are dependent for our production—that harder work will not result in them joining the queue at the employment exchange. It is tragic that we should be discussing greater efficiency in industry today, when, at the same time, there are people living in fear of unemployment. In the old days, the men in the mines knew that the quicker the mountains of coal at the pithead grew, the quicker would they become unemployed, and something similar is true in other industries.
Therefore, so that we may work together, let us give those in industry that guarantee. Let us assure them that the harder they work the greater they will benefit, and that they can dismiss the fear of joining those who are already signing on at the employment exchange. I think it is altogether wrong to separate—whatever tributes may have been paid to joint committees—two sections of industry. Industry requires a joint effort, and we have to ensure that those who are engaged in it will get a guaranteed return and that they can have a feeling of security. People will not invest in industry unless they feel they are assured of a return, and the other side cannot be expected to invest its labour in industry without some guarantee of a good return.
I have very mixed feelings today. I spent the greater part of my life working in a coal mine, and I have seen the weaknesses of the mines. I watched the mines deteriorating in the inter-war years to such an extent that the industry itself was in jeopardy of going to waste altogether, and it was a shocking thing for any man of ordinary intelligence to contemplate. I have seen the lack of security which existed in the industry, and, notwithstanding the fact that I have two sons, I had to admit that the last thing in the world that I wanted to see was those boys going down the mine, because of the lack of that very security.
Let us, therefore, in an endeavour to encourage men to go into the coal mines and into other industries, give them that

guarantee of security. I say to the Minister and to the Government that they should think seriously how we can keep people in industry and encourage in them a sense of security in view of what we had to listen to yesterday and what we have been reading in the newspapers today about proposals to de-nationalise some industries, and the other side saying that, if they are returned to power, they will nationalise them again. That will neither reduce our difficulties nor increase the efficiency of industry, whether it is coal, steel or transport.
I have great confidence in the people of this country. I was not in the mines all my life, because I have had the opportunity of going abroad to many countries as a member of Her Majesty's Navy, and I have seen no people anywhere who work harder than ours. I have the greatest confidence in our people that they can do the job, but I think that the time has come when we can no longer afford to think of industry in terms of separate compartments.
If this economic clash does come, with all its horrible consequences, it will not be the Government who will be defeated. It will be all of us; not one side of industry, but both sides. Therefore, all those responsible for industry should realise that the best way of getting efficiency and greater production in industry is to see that those engaged in it are given this guarantee of security.
We are facing this crisis together. Let us get down to studying this question of coalmining. I am sure the House will excuse me if I return to that subject, because without coal we shall get nowhere at all. Unless we face the difficulties of the industry and the lack of facilities for training young miners to replace the older ones, then all the joint committees in the world will get us nowhere.

4.31 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Henry Strauss): The House has listened to two speeches which leave it in no doubt as to the great importance of the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson). He speaks with a great and practical knowledge of his industry, and he has raised a matter of great national importance. On the importance of increasing productivity at the


present time, there is, I think, no difference of opinion in this House at the moment.
The worst of an Adjournment debate of this character is that hon. Members who make their speeches reasonably brief, I agree, still manage to raise a great number of points with which the Minister cannot hope to deal satisfacfactorily, especially if he wishes to leave time for somebody who is going to raise a subsequent topic. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Hubbard) will, I know, forgive me if I do not go into details of the coal industry, on which he speaks with knowledge, and on which he raises points which deserve a more considered reply than I can give today.
Let me say to my hon. Friend at once that I can entirely reassure him on one of the first points he made, namely that the fact that there may be shortages of raw materials does not mean that the Government think the question of productivity any less important. If anything, it is more important. I can assure him that there is no such feeling and no such attitude of defeatism as he feared there might be. I also agree very strongly with him when he says that if the less efficient companies and firms in this country were as good as the more efficient, our problem would be largely solved.

Mr. Hubbard: Then there would not be any less efficient, would there?

Mr. Strauss: I was dealing with the difference that such an improvement would make, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate.
I think the only possible difference of opinion between my hon. Friend and the Government would be on what were the respective contributions to this matter that could be made by the Government and by industry. I agree with him that both must make a contribution. If I were to give my general conclusion in a few words, I should say that the Government and this House can help and encourage greater productivity, but that it is for industry—and by industry I mean, of course, both sides of it—to get on with the job.
I agree with my hon. Friend that the Government can make—and I think I can show him that they have made—very considerable contributions, and certainly

have no intention of standing aside and treating this problem as one with which they have nothing to do. If I might give a few examples, the first would be connected with this very subject of the shortage of materials. Particularly at such a time high productivity in terms of material is most important.
That means efficient workshop practice, what I might call good housekeeping in the factories and the general use of economy standards of production. As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, the British Standards Institute and the Government are co-operating in this matter. The Government, of course, are major purchasers of stores and major users of raw materials in the Ordnance factories.
The B.S.I. are engaged in revising all existing standards to secure economy in the use of scarce materials. To give a single example, they are considering how much scarce materials can be saved by achieving the proper, and no more than proper, thickness of the brass tap. Many other examples will occur to hon. Members who are familiar with industry.
Again, there is the very important subject of standardisation and simplification which can produce great economies on a "long run," a term with which hon. Members who are interested in industry are familiar. There is also the economy, perhaps not so generally recognised, that can be effected by not having excessively great stocks. If there are too many sizes and standards it means that every individual firm has to have a large stock of everything, and that is very wasteful.
Then there is the encouragement of research. As the House is aware, the Government are giving financial help to research in the universities and in their own research stations, such as the Road Research and Building Research Stations and the National Physical Laboratory, and financial help to technological research in the great research associations, of which the Shirley Institute is an example well-known to all hon. Members. The Government also do a great deal through the provision of information.
If, dealing now with the past, I were asked to say what had been the main agency in recent years for doing the kind of thing my hon. Friend has in mind, I should name the Anglo-American Council on Productivity. My hon. Friend was quite right in saying that the


time for sending teams to America is coming to an end. Very few more teams are being sent and I think none after June. But sometimes I think this body is not entirely happily named. People do not realise how much it has done by following up the work of these teams in this country.
Much valuable and useful work has been done in that direction, but I am afraid I am too pressed for time to give examples at this moment. Not only have there been reports on individual industries but also several useful specialist reports of general interest to all industries, bearing on such matters as simplification and specialisation and such topics as mechanical handling.
I know that my hon. Friend, and indeed the House, will want me to say a word about the future. As the House is aware from many statements in the Press and elsewhere, the Anglo-American Council on Productivity will come to an end as the work which it has been doing in collecting and transmitting the latest American techniques tapers off.
It has also been stated that conversations are now in progress between the constituent bodies of the Council to determine whether any purely British body can be set up to take its place and, if so, what should be its constitution and functions. The Government have been informed of the conversations and await the final outcome with great interest and a keen desire to help.
I think that my hon. Friend will find that, if agreement is reached on the formation of a new council, it will fulfil nearly all the requirements he has suggested and will be in a position to examine all the proposals for action which he has put forward. I shall certainly be prepared to bring the hon. Member's proposals to the attention of the people concerned.
So far as I can see, there is likely to be only one major point of difference between us. The Government would certainly not press, nor would they willingly agree, that the new body should have a Minister in the chair or that it should include Members of this House. This business of increasing productivity is non-party and non-political, and, though the Government and this House can help and encourage, it is for industry to get on with the job.

RAILWAY BRANCH LINES, NORTHUMBERLAND (CLOSING)

4.42 p.m.

Mr. Rupert Speir: I am very grateful for this opportunity to raise, however briefly, the question of the closing of branch line railways by the British Transport Commission. The policy of closing branch lines all over the country which is now being pursued is causing acute anxiety and inconvenience in many rural areas. I quite realise that the Transport Commission have statutory obligations to try to make the railways pay and that they cannot be governed by sentiment, that they must harden their hearts and close these branch lines from time to time.
I certainly do not want to base my argument against the closure of these lines on grounds of sentiment. I want to deal with the problem objectively. Nevertheless, when a branch line is closed and the station goes derelict, the local community suffers a very definite and sensible loss, not to mention the personal loss which is suffered by the staff and their families, who often have lived in those localities for many generations and who are then uprooted and moved on elsewhere.
I know it is always said that when branch railway lines are closed, adequate alternative services of buses are supplied. Unfortunately, I think we know that that is not always the case. Indeed, even if buses are supplied to take the place of the services which were formerly provided by the branch lines, the fact is that buses cannot provide such a good service in many directions. To mention just two examples, the buses are incapable of dealing with heavy luggage such as, for instance, prams and bicycles which are of considerable importance to a place like Rothbury, which is on one of the lines about which I wish to talk and which is much used as a holiday resort. Again, buses are more liable to be held up by frost or snow, and that, again, is an important matter in outlying areas like the wilds of Northumberland where they have a long winter and a late spring.
I should like to point out that we are now beginning to feel the full effect of having given the Transport Commission their monopolistic powers. They are beginning to use them very ruthlessly. They are ordering the public about and


telling them how they are to travel and how they are not to travel. In Scotland, they have recently been telling the public that they must go by train and not by bus, but in Northumberland, a few miles south, they are telling the public that in future they must go by bus and not by train.
A feeling is growing up that the gentlemen in Whitehall are having altogether too much to say and are not paying sufficient attention to the requirements and conditions of the local communities. The feeling is also growing up that if the gentleman in Whitehall cannot make these services pay and keep these ventures going, they should make way for private persons or companies who think they can do so. But with their monopoly the question does not arise. Competition is not permitted. Certainly, I am not alone in criticising the actions and, above all, the lack of initiative and enterprise, which is being shown at present by the Transport Commission.
I notice that the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who wholeheartedly supported the setting up of this nationalised transport industry, when speaking in the House on 30th November, said this:
My criticism is that in their policy on this matter …
that is, their policy with regard to the closing down of branch line railways,
the Transport Commission show themselves to be unimaginative, lacking in foresight, and without really constructive thinking."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1951; Vol. 494, c. 1984.]
That is the charge I make against them this afternoon—that they are not acting with enterprise. There are many branch lines which could and should be kept going and which could be kept going successfully if only the Transport Commission, acting through the Railway Executive, would make more use either of diesel rail cars or of steam push-and-pull coaches, or if they would adopt a more sensible policy in regard to converting these branch lines into light railways.
By doing that they could get rid of many of the onerous statutory duties which are placed upon branch lines—duties which are laid down in Acts passed in the horse age, such as the Railway

Consolidation Clauses Act of 1845 which, under Section 68, imposes very rigorous obligations on branch line railways. In general, although we accept the principle that the Railway Executive must make the railways pay, we would rather see them pay by producing a better service than by cutting down the existing service.
It is quite true that by cutting out many of the branch lines they will save hundreds and thousands of pounds; but we think it would be better if they would provide services which would attract more custom and be more remunerative. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he could say a word about the two branch lines in Northumberland which are now threatened with closure, namely, the Reedsmouth Junction—Morpeth line and the Rothbury—Morpeth line.
Already in Northumberland the Transport Commission have closed two lines—the Hexham to Allendale line and the Morpeth to Bedington line. Can my hon. Friend give an assurance that there will be a limit to the closing of these branch lines in Northumberland and, in particular, can he give an assurance that the Border Counties line between Hexham and Riccarton Junction will be kept in full maintenance both for freight and for passenger traffic.
Second, can he say a word or two about the alternative bus services which will be provided for those areas which will be affected when the passenger train services are removed from the Reedsmouth—Morpeth line? Third, can he say a word or two about any plans which the Railway Executive may have for introducing economies on branch lines, both in regard to motive power and manpower, with a view to making them pay better?

4.51 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): During recent years it has not been possible for the representative of the Hexham Division to intervene in our debates, for obvious and distinguished reasons, namely, that your predecessor in the Chair of this House, Mr. Speaker, represented that constituency. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) joined us last October, it was not long before he made his presence felt on the back benches, and certainly he has raised a matter of importance today.
This is the third occasion since I took office on which this question of branch lines has been raised on the Adjournment, and on the other occasions I endeavoured to make my reply as objective as possible. I think it may be of value if I spend a minute or two explaining the procedure which is followed when branch lines are closed.
The British Transport Commission's policy in regard to the withdrawal of these services is set out in Section 30 of their Report and Accounts for 1950, which I have no doubt my hon. Friend has studied with care. It may briefly be summarised as follows—that the Commission will continue to survey branch lines in conjunction with the Railway Executive and to withdraw services in all cases where a clear financial saving will be obtained and a satisfactory alternative can be provided, as, for example, by the provision of road passenger services in place of branch passenger lines.
In all cases where passenger train facilities are withdrawn, contact is made with Commission-owned or Commission-associated bus companies and, where necessary and practicable, additions are made to the road services. In most cases, however, it is found that nearly all the traffic has already been captured by the road services and that the small increment caused by the withdrawal of the railway services will not, in fact, create any serious problem.
It has all along been the policy of the Transport Commission to inform local authorities and other interests of their intentions to withdraw these services. This arrangement did not in every case produce a satisfactory examination of the problems, because there was not in all cases a reference to the appropriate Transport Consultative Committee, but during 1951 the Commission undertook that the Railway Executive would inform the appropriate Transport Consultative Committee, in addition to those interests to whom they had already been accustomed to make reference. I am very grateful to one of my hon. Friends for bringing me a glass of water. My voice, like the House, is in need of an Easter Recess.
The British Transport Commission have also agreed with the Central Transport Consultative Committee that detailed and comprehensive information shall be supplied in each case which will give the

Committee all the knowledge they need to make an adequate judgment on the case.
My hon. Friend asked about the Hexham—Riccarton line. I am informed that at present there is no proposal to close this branch, but the Railway Executive have been examining the position here in the same way as they are investigating all similar lines. However, no final assessment of the position has yet been made. As I have stated, the users' interests are protected by the Consultative Committee machinery, and I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that any proposals which may be made by the Railway Executive will be subject to the fullest examination through that machinery.
Diesel cars were referred to in an Adjournment debate on the third day of this month when my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) raised the question, and I had to tell him, as I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham today, that in these days of limited capital expenditure railway priority has to go in the direction of track improvements and freight waggons. There are serious speed restrictions at present owing to the need for restoring the track, and there are 100,000 over-age waggons in the service, and these are regarded as the greatest priority. But even if Diesel cars were to be functioning, these branch lines would still be uneconomic.
My hon. Friend talked about alternative bus services from Reedsmouth to Woodburn and other stations on the Morpeth line. I have made certain inquiries, and I understand that there will be daily bus services to Morpeth from Knowesgate, Scotsgap, Middleton North, Angerton and Meldon. There will not, however, be bus services from Reeds-mouth and Woodburn to Morpeth, but there are daily buses from Reedsmouth and Woodburn to Newcastle, and also train services from Reedsmouth. All these bus services are operated—and I am sure my hon. Friend will be glad to hear this in view of one remark he made in regard to private enterprise—by private undertakers—a word I do not verymuch like for it may be misunderstood—and they are obviously bound to have regard to the number of passengers who wish to avail themselves of any particular service.
If I may say so, I think my hon. Friend somewhat exaggerated the difficulties of handling baggage, perambulators, and the like, by bus, because even where branch lines are still running, our forefathers placed the stations at least half a mile from any village in nearly every case and the baggage has to be moved from the station to the destination. The real answer is the small road haulage operator, and H.M. Government will be bringing this aspect of the matter before the House in the very near future.
My hon. Friend talked about the Morpeth, Rothbury and Reedsmouth line. I have made inquiries about that, and I understand that on special occasions, such as race meetings and so on, excursions will be run if there is any demand, but patronage in the past has not been encouraging.
I know that there is nostalgia over these branch lines. We all feel it. People say, "They have been laid down. There they are. Why do they not carry passengers?" So we have the canals, which used to carry passengers, too. They exist. I have been refreshing myself by reading the life

of my grandfather, who was born in the reign of His Majesty King George III, and who has described how he went from Kendal to Lancaster in a Swift canal boat at six miles per hour. Well, my hon. Friend will not, I think, claim that because canals exist we must go in for that form of transport. We must be realistic, and it must be admitted that the closing of these branch lines would have been inevitable, with or without nationalisation.
Mine is the last voice to be raised prior to the Easter Adjournment. May I be permitted, Mr. Speaker, to express to you, on behalf of the House, the wish that you, who are unable to pair during these lengthy Sittings we have, will be able to find some easement; and that when we return we shall return to an increasing respect for the Chair of this House, the greatest democratic function in a troubled world.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at One minute to Five o'Clock, till Monday, 21st April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.